Saturday, February 10, 2007
Oxytocin in Autism
Autism is one of the most widely diagnosed developmental disabilities in the nation. The number of children diagnosed with autism has increased 10 times in the last 20 years. Boys with autism outnumber girls four to one. Oxytocin is known to be important to social behavior and social interest – areas that are difficult for children with autism. Oxytocin levels have previously been found to be low in boys with autism, but have not been studied in autistic girls.
Oxytocin dysfunction might contribute to the development of social deficits in autism, a core symptom domain and potential target for intervention. This study explored the effect of intravenous oxytocin administration on the retention of social information in autism.
METHODS: Oxytocin and placebo challenges were administered to 15 adult subjects diagnosed with autism or Asperger's disorder, and comprehension of affective speech (happy, indifferent, angry, and sad) in neutral content sentences was tested.
RESULTS: All subjects showed improvements in affective speech comprehension from pre- to post-infusion; however, whereas those who received placebo first tended to revert to baseline after a delay, those who received oxytocin first retained the ability to accurately assign emotional significance to speech intonation on the speech comprehension task.
CONCLUSIONS: These results are consistent with studies linking oxytocin to social recognition in rodents as well as studies linking oxytocin to prosocial behavior in humans and suggest that oxytocin might facilitate social information processing in those with autism. These findings also provide preliminary support for the use of oxytocin in the treatment of autism.
6:55 PM
let our love blossom this valentine..
