N-acetylcysteine (NAC) for Children With Tourette Syndrome
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01172288. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Official title
Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) for the Treatment of Children With Tourette Syndrome
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Tourette syndrome is a childhood-onset neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by multiple motor and vocal tics that last for at least a year in duration. Currently, there exist several effective pharmacological treatments for childhood tics including alpha-2 agonist medications (guanfacine and clonidine) and neuroleptics (antipsychotic) medications. These medications, however, have significant side-effects and are only partially efficacy in treating tics. N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is a natural supplement that acts as an antioxidant and glutamate modulating agent. NAC has been used safely for decades in doses 20-40 times higher than in this trial as an antidote for acetaminophen overdose. The only side-effect commonly seen with NAC is nausea and this side-effect is seldom seen in the doses used in this trial. NAC has recently been demonstrated to be effective in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in adults with trichotillomania (chronic hair pulling). Hairpulling is hypothesized to be closely related to tics because these conditions (1) have similar clinical characteristics -- both groups typically experience urges before engaging in pulling or tics, (2) neuroimaging studies suggest they involve similar brain circuits -- the basal ganglia, (3) the same pharmacological treatments (neuroleptics) may be effective for both conditions and (4) they tend to be inherited together in families. In other trials NAC has evidence of some efficacy in treating diverse psychiatric conditions such as bipolar depression, schizophrenia and cocaine dependence. The investigators are conducting this trial to determine if NAC is an effective treatment for tics.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT01172288
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase 2
- Enrollment
- 31 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 8 Years to 17 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Jun 30, 2010
- Primary completion
- Dec 31, 2013
- Completion
- Dec 31, 2013
- Last update posted
- Feb 9, 2017
2010 – 2014
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yale Child Study Center | New Haven | Connecticut | 06520 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01172288, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Feb 9, 2017 · Synced Sep 8, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT01172288 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.