Table 1.

Selected medications of different classes that are currently used to manage different ASD symptoms.

Class	Medication	Structure	Pharmacological effects	Side effects	Reference
Atypical Antipsychotics	Clozapine		Improves hyperactivity and aggression in ASD patients	Requires patient's hematological safety monitoring and it lowers seizure threshold	Zuddas et al., 1996; Chen et al., 2001; Gobbi and Pulvirenti, 2001; Sahoo et al., 2017
	Risperidone		Reduces irritability, repetitive behavior, aggression, anxiety, and depression & nervousness. It shows neuroprotective activity, modulates astroglia function, and increases the brain antioxidant activity.	Mild sedation, increased appetite, fatigue, dizziness, drowsiness, tremor, and constipation	McDougle et al., 1998b; McCracken et al., 2002; Hara et al., 2017
	Aripiprazole		Reduces autistic symptoms in children such as irritability, stereotypy, and hyperactivity	Fatigue, vomiting, weight gain, tremor, and extrapyramidal symptoms	Marcus et al., 2009; Owen et al., 2009; Hirsch and Pringsheim, 2016
Selective Serotonin Reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)	Fluoxetine		Reduces stereotyped and repetitive behavior in children and adolescents with ASD.	Hypomania. agitation, and hyperactivity	Fatemi et al., 1998; DeLong et al., 2002; Hollander et al., 2005; Hendriksen et al., 2016
	Fluvoxamine		Improves compulsive repetitive behaviors, aggression	Irritability, and increase risk of suicidal ideas	McDougle et al., 1996; Martin et al., 2003; Brown et al., 2017; Howes et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2018
	Sertraline		All SSRIs possess similar effects to fluoxetine and fluvoxamine. Sertraline shows improvements in repetitive and disruptive behavior in adults with ASD, paroxetine reduced aggression, and escitalopram shows improvements in irritability, stereotypy, hyperactivity and inappropriate speech.		Hellings et al., 1996; McDougle et al., 1998a; AlOlaby et al., 2017
	Paroxetine				Davanzo et al., 1998; Hellings et al., 2015
	Escitalopram				Owley et al., 2005; Brown et al., 2017; Viktorin et al., 2017
	Venlafaxine		Improves restricted behavior and interest, social and communication deficits, and hyperactivity	Irritability, and increase risk of suicidal idea	Carminati et al., 2006, 2016
Tricyclic Antidepressant	Nortriptyline		Improves hyperactivity and aggressiveness in autistic children	Sedation, increase in aggression, irritability and hyperactivity	Kurtis, 1966; Campbell et al., 1971; Hong et al., 2017
	Clomipramine		Improves anger and compulsive and ritualized behavior		Gordon et al., 1993; Sanchez et al., 1996; Hong et al., 2017
Anticonvulsants	Lamotrigine		Improves overall autistic symptoms	Life-threatening skin reactions, including Stevens-Johnson syndrome, drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms, and toxic epidermal necrolysis	Uvebrant and Bauziene, 1994; Jobski et al., 2017
	Valproic acid		Improves receptive language, affective instability, aggression, and social skills	Irritability, weight gain, anxiety	Anagnostou et al., 2006; Hollander et al., 2006, 2010; Jobski et al., 2017
	Levetiracetam		Decreases symptoms such as hyperactivity, impulsivity, aggression, and affective lability	CNS effects such as somnolence, decreased energy, headache, dizziness, mood swings and coordination difficulties	Rugino and Samsock, 2002; Jobski et al., 2017
Glutamate antagonist	Amantadine		Improves hyperactivity and speech disturbance	Nervousness, anxiety, agitation, insomnia, difficulty in concentrating, and exacerbations of pre-existing seizure disorders and psychiatric symptoms in patients with schizophrenia or Parkinson's disease.	King et al., 2001; Naaijen et al., 2017
	Memantine		Improves memory, hyperactivity, irritability, social behavior and communication, and self-stimulatory behavior	Few autistic individuals experienced worsening of autistic symptoms	Owley et al., 2006; Chez et al., 2007; Naaijen et al., 2017; Vorstman et al., 2017
Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors	Rivastigmine		Improves overall autistic behavior	Nausea, diarrhea, hyperactivity, and irritability	Vorstman et al., 2017
	Donepezil		Improves irritability and hyperactivity	Nausea and vomiting, decreased appetite and weight loss	Hardan and Handen, 2002; Vorstman et al., 2017
	Galantamine		Improves several autistic symptoms in children such as irritability, hyperactivity, social interaction deficits, inappropriate speech, loss of attention, and anger		Niederhofer et al., 2002; Nicolson et al., 2006; Vorstman et al., 2017
Psycho-stimulant	Methylphenidate		Improves several autistic behavioral symptoms in children and adolescents such as hyperactivity, impulsivity, attention, social communication, and self-regulation	Anorexia, aggression, and insomnia	Handen et al., 2000; Di Martino et al., 2004; Jahromi et al., 2009; Kim et al., 2017
Adrenergic α2 receptor agonists	Clonidine		Improves hyperactivity, mood fluctuation, aggressiveness and agitation, sleeping pattern and night time awakenings	Sedation, dry mouth, and hypotension	Fankhauser et al., 1992; Ming et al., 2008; Nash and Carter, 2016
	Guanfacine		Improves attention, hyperactivity, and tics	Insomnia, fatigue, blurred vision, mood instability, sedation, constipation, irritability, and aggression.	Posey et al., 2004; Scahill et al., 2006; Boellner et al., 2007; Nash and Carter, 2016
Opiate antagonist	Naltrexone		Improves, hyperactivity, irritability, self- injuries. However, ineffective in social deficits.	Gastrointestinal complaints such as diarrhea and abdominal cramping.	Panksepp and Lensing, 1991; Bouvard et al., 1995; Kolmen et al., 1995; Elchaar et al., 2006; Clifford et al., 2007; Nash and Carter, 2016

Data were obtained from https://clinicaltrials.gov/ last accessed 2017 August 20th.