News

Sound processing — part of a complex system in the brain — is impaired in girls with Rett syndrome, and those impairments correlate with deficiencies in the children’s speech skills, a new study found. In their work with more than 40 children with Rett, a team of researchers in…

The use of low-dose extracorporeal shock wave therapy — a safe and noninvasive treatment known as ESWT — for three months was found to improve motor function in children with Rett syndrome. Reduced muscle stiffness, known as spasticity, also was seen among the children, but the benefits were not…

Taking a long time to fall asleep and having increased rapid eye movement (REM) sleep correlate with a higher burden of purposeless hand movements, called stereotypies, in girls with Rett syndrome, a new study shows. These findings may also suggest a “higher risk of insomnia in individuals with [Rett]…

An injection of Taysha Gene Therapies’ experimental gene therapy TSHA-102 into the spinal canal of young mice modeling Rett syndrome can improve weight, survival, breathing, and motor skills, a preclinical study suggests. The data support using the intrathecal route in ongoing Phase 1/2…

Among experienced physicians, neurologists are reportedly more comfortable than pediatricians in treating people with Rett syndrome, according to a survey conducted in the U.S. Neurologists also consider more tools than pediatricians do when diagnosing patients with Rett, data show. These findings highlight the need for “better education and support…

Up to nearly half of children and adults with Rett syndrome in the U.S. have digestive problems, resulting in added medical costs that average more than $4,400 per patient each year, a study finds. While gastrointestinal (GI) manifestations appear to represent a great burden…

The first girl with Rett syndrome has been given the experimental gene therapy TSHA-102 in a clinical trial, according to the treatment’s developer, Taysha Gene Therapies. “Dosing the first pediatric patient with Rett syndrome marks an important step forward in our efforts to broaden the clinical evaluation…

A Phase 1/2 clinical trial has been cleared to infuse NGN-401, a one-time investigational gene therapy, to a third girl with Rett syndrome, its developer, Neurogene, reports. The green light given by the Data Safety Monitoring Board overseeing the clinical trial’s progress was based on data indicating…

Treatment with Anavex 2-73 (blarcamesine) led to improvements in behavior among children with Rett syndrome in a Phase 2/3 clinical trial — but the extent of these gains was not significantly different from improvements seen in patients given a placebo. Those are the top-line findings of the EXCELLENCE…

Rett syndrome is marked by unusually low levels of LAT1, a protein that’s needed to move amino acids — the building blocks of proteins — into the brain. That’s according to the study, “Metabolic characterization of neurogenetic disorders involving glutamatergic neurotransmission,” published in the Journal of Inherited…