Oxytocin Boosts Brain Activity in Kids With Autism (STUDY)

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Summary: Oxytocin, delivered in a single dose via a nasal spray, hikes brain activity in kids with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), according to a promising new study. The big news here: Parts of the brain that govern social interactions may not be irrevocably impaired in kids with the disorder.

By Nancy Josephson Liff | Posted: December 5, 2013

A feel-good hormone typically linked to trust, love, and emotional bonding appears to have a positive impact on the brain activity of kids with autism spectrum disorders.

The hormone is oxytocin. Most new moms know it as pituitary hormone that causes contractions during labor. It's also involved in milk production for nursing. A study published last year in the Journal of Neuroscience found oxytocin administered through a nasal spray may also keep curious husbands from straying.

Now, in what appears to be a significant advance in autism research, Yale University investigators recently found that one single dose of oxytocin in nasal spray form "temporarily normalized" parts of the brain linked to social deficits in autistic children.

The so-called love hormone did not improve the kids' social interactions. But it did positively impact regions of the brain that come into play in social settings. The finding suggests that oxytocin in nasal spray form could be used prior to therapy (such as social skills interventions) to heighten the impact of the treatment.

Neuroscientist Ilanit Gordon, an adjunct assistant professor at Yale Child Study Center, and senior study author Kevin Pelphrey, director of Yale's Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, conducted the study. Their findings appear online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder whose symptoms include communication problems, difficult interactions with others, and a tendency toward repetitive behavior. Children with autism struggle with social cues and often confuse or alienate playmates. Some kids with autism don't speak at all. Others are highly verbal. But in general all individuals with autism have a hard time communicating with friends and family.

Researchers at Yale recently asked 17 youngsters with ASD to complete tasks, some involving social cognition and other skills, while investigators analyzed brain activity via functional MRIs over the course of two sessions.

Children in the study ranged in age from eight to 16. Researchers described the children as high functioning. All youngsters took part in both imaging sessions, and each child received the placebo as well as oxytocin. As part of the experiment, researchers asked kids to judge the emotional state of a person based on how that person's eyes looked in a picture.

The intriguing finding here is that kids showed more activity in areas of the brain associated with social functioning when exposed to oxytocin than they did with the placebo. "Oxytocin temporarily normalized brain regions responsible for the social deficits seen in children with autism," said researcher Gordon.

Interestingly, the Yale study appeared just five months after a University of New South Wales study no found changes in social interaction after using oxytocin for three days in individuals with ASD.

In a release, UNSW researcher Mark Dadds said at the time that many parents were already using oxytocin for their autistic youngsters. "Oxytocin has been touted as a possible new treatment, but its effects may be limited," Dadds stated. (The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved oxytocin for autism.)

A word to parents: Be on the lookout for larger and, hopefully, more conclusive studies on oxytocin and autism spectrum disorders.

"Larger studies are definitely underway to determine the effects of oxytocin on social interactions in children with ASD," said Cheryl O. Alderman, CCRP, clinical research manager for the ASPIRE Research Program at the University of North Carolina. UNC recently received a large federal grant for just such research. "Right now, parents are using oxytocin off label without any real knowledge of what dose is best and what the side developmental side effects really are."

Would you use the hormone oxytocin to help your child — even if it lacked FDA approval? Why or why not?

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