University of New Orleans psychology professor Christopher Harshaw’s research on the possible link between a common pain reliever and developmental disorders has been published in the October issue of the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior.

Harshaw was awarded a one-year grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents for the research, which focused on the developmental reaction that mice have to acetaminophen, best known by its popular brand name version, Tylenol.

Several epidemiological studies have linked the use of acetaminophen in infants and young children to attention deficit and autism spectrum disorder in humans. Studies in animals have also shown long-term changes in brain in behavior after exposure to acetaminophen early in life. Most had nevertheless neglected the question of how acetaminophen interacts with inflammation early in life, Harshaw said.

Harshaw’s study addressed this issue, finding distinct effects of inflammation and acetaminophen early in life. For example, acetaminophen resulted in elevated levels of social caution in male mice. At the same time, there was interaction between inflammation and acetaminophen, resulting in elevated levels of anxiety in females and social avoidance in males.

Critically, protective effects of acetaminophen against specific negative effects of early life inflammation were also found. His research findings ultimately indicate the need to further study the question of whether there’s a negative connection between the use of pain reliever in young children and neurodevelopmental disorders.

“We emphasize that, though provocative, our results do not support a simple conclusion regarding the relative danger vs. safety of (acetaminophen exposure) early in life,” Harshaw writes in a summary of the research findings. “Our study has a number of key limitations and warrants both replication and refinement.”