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The purpose of this case report is to report the clinical experience of the use of gabapentin in the management of problem behaviors in a person with autism spectrum disorder and comorbid intellectual disability. Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder with a high prevalence of intellectual disability. Challenging behaviors in autism spectrum disorder are very common. In recent years, the hypothesis that the symptoms of autism derive from a deficiency of the inhibitory neurotransmission of gamma-aminobutyric acid is gaining considerable weight.

Exploring behavioral symptoms improvement in an adult man with ASD and severe intellectual disability taking gabapentin.

The rating scales used show improvement in challenging behaviors and aggressions. No side effects were observed.

Currently, there are no authorized drugs for the treatment of the symptomatic features of autism spectrum disorder, but drugs are used for comorbid psychopathological aspects. The authors want to speculate on a hypothetical function of gabapentin in remodeling the expression of alpha-2-delta subunits in people with autism and the processing of neural information.

Although a growing number of companies are using growth hacking (GH) to grow their businesses, scholars know little about its operationalization, namely through growth hacking capability (GHC), its antecedents and its effectiveness in improving their performance. Indeed, there are no studies that have examined the role of intellectual capital (IC) in this sense. The aim of this study is to fill these gaps and explore the effects of IC (composed of human, relational and structural capital) in influencing GHC and – in turn – whether GHC influences companies’ financial and market performance.

Empirical research was conducted using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to examine the validity of the proposed hypotheses and research model. Quantitative data were collected from 38 SMEs in the Italian context through a specifically designed questionnaire.

The results of the analysis show that IC has a positive and significant impact on SMEs’ GHC, thus confirming its role as a relevant antecedent; at the same time, the empirical results underscore the positive effect GHC has on SMEs’ financial and market performance.

First, the present body of work operationalizes GH, thereby, following previous work on lean startup and explores for the first time in literature the effect of IC on it. Second, from a contextual standpoint, the article deepens scholars' understanding of GHC by focusing on SMEs. Lastly, the adopted method represents a novel approach to investigating GHC, as scholarly literature has primarily focused on qualitative and theoretical dimensions.