Emerging and experimental
Emerging therapies
These are the treatments families are approached about — often abroad, often privately, usually at considerable cost. None of them is established care in children. Each page follows the same shape: what it is, how it is meant to work, what has genuinely been tested, what is unknown, the risks, and the questions to ask.
If the therapies on What works are not fully in place, that is where the next decision belongs — not here.
Stem cell therapy
Several different products share this name. Some are licensed medicines for blood disorders; none is a licensed treatment for cerebral palsy or autism anywhere in the world.
Umbilical cord blood, cord tissue MSCs, bone marrow mononuclear cells
Early research onlyExosomes
The cell-free next step after stem cells, with genuinely interesting laboratory science — and, in children, almost no controlled clinical evidence at all.
Extracellular vesicles, MSC-derived EVs
Early research onlyMuse cells
A distinct cell type with an unusual property — it appears to home to damaged tissue on its own — and an unusually small amount of clinical evidence, almost none of it in children.
Multilineage-differentiating Stress Enduring cells
Early research onlyPhotobiomodulation
Non-invasive, painless and inexpensive compared with cell therapies — with small, mostly short studies behind it and a wide gap between what is claimed and what has been shown.
Transcranial near-infrared light, low-level laser therapy, PBM
In clinical trialsMagnetic stimulation
The most clinically established technique on this site — genuinely approved for some uses in older adolescents, and still investigational for most of what it is offered for in children.
rTMS, theta-burst stimulation, TMS
Early research onlyPeptide preparations
Two quite different things share this word: prescription neuropeptide preparations used routinely in some countries, and an unregulated wellness trade. Neither has good evidence in children.
Cerebrolysin, Cortexin, Semax, and “peptide therapy” sold by wellness clinics
Early research onlyMedicinal mushrooms and nootropics
A research band worth watching, and a supplement shelf to approach carefully. Some of these compounds have real laboratory interest; almost none has been tested in children with neurological conditions.
Lion's mane (Hericium erinaceus), reishi, cordyceps, citicoline, piracetam, psilocybin