Muons penetrate much further than X-rays, they do essentially zero damage, and they are provided for free by the cosmos.
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Edited by Leslie G. Ungerleider, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, and approved November 6, 2013 (received for review July 8, 2013)
Significance
This article presents our discovery that intranasal administration of oxytocin enhances activity in the brain for socially meaningful stimuli and attenuates its response to nonsocially meaningful stimuli in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as measured via functional MRI. We also identified a relationship between changes in salivary oxytocin following administration and enhancements in brain function. These discoveries are particularly important given the urgent need for treatments that target the core social dysfunction in ASD. The functional neural attunement we demonstrated might facilitate social learning, thus potentially bringing about long-term change in neural systems and subsequent behavioral improvements. Our results illustrate the power of a translational neuroscience approach to facilitate the development of pharmacological interventions for neurodevelopmental disorders like ASD.
Abstract
Following intranasal administration of oxytocin (OT), we measured, via functional MRI, changes in brain activity during judgments of socially (Eyes) and nonsocially (Vehicles) meaningful pictures in 17 children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD). OT increased activity in the striatum, the middle frontal gyrus, the medial prefrontal cortex, the right orbitofrontal cortex, and the left superior temporal sulcus. In the striatum, nucleus accumbens, left posterior superior temporal sulcus, and left premotor cortex, OT increased activity during social judgments and decreased activity during nonsocial judgments. Changes in salivary OT concentrations from baseline to 30 min postadministration were positively associated with increased activity in the right amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex during social vs. nonsocial judgments. OT may thus selectively have an impact on salience and hedonic evaluations of socially meaningful stimuli in children with ASD, and thereby facilitate social attunement. These findings further the development of a neurophysiological systems-level understanding of mechanisms by which OT may enhance social functioning in children with ASD.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ilanit.gordon{at}yale.edu.
Author contributions: I.G., J.F.L., R.F., and K.A.P. designed research; I.G., R.H.B., C.C., and M.V.L. performed research; O.Z.-S. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; I.G., B.C.V.W., J.A.E., O.Z.-S., and K.A.P. analyzed data; I.G. and K.A.P. wrote the paper; and J.F.L. was the medical doctor in charge of the study.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1312857110/-/DCSupplemental.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
Oxytocin and brain function in autism
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