Aoki, Y;
Watanabe, T;
Abe, O;
Kuwabara, H;
Yahata, N;
Takano, Y;
Iwashiro, N;
... Yamasue, H; + view all
(2015)
Oxytocin's neurochemical effects in the medial prefrontal cortex underlie recovery of task-specific brain activity in autism: a randomized controlled trial.
Molecular Psychiatry
, 20
(4)
pp. 447-453.
10.1038/mp.2014.74.
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Abstract
The neuropeptide oxytocin may be an effective therapeutic strategy for the currently untreatable social and communication deficits associated with autism. Our recent paper reported that oxytocin mitigated autistic behavioral deficits through the restoration of activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), as demonstrated with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a socio-communication task. However, it is unknown whether oxytocin exhibited effects at the neuronal level, which was outside of the specific task examined. In the same randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject cross-over clinical trial in which a single dose of intranasal oxytocin (24 IU) was administered to 40 men with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (UMIN000002241/000004393), we measured N-acetylaspartate (NAA) levels, a marker for neuronal energy demand, in the vmPFC using (1)H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS). The differences in the NAA levels between the oxytocin and placebo sessions were associated with oxytocin-induced fMRI signal changes in the vmPFC. The oxytocin-induced increases in the fMRI signal could be predicted by the NAA differences between the oxytocin and placebo sessions (P=0.002), an effect that remained after controlling for variability in the time between the fMRI and (1)H-MRS scans (P=0.006) and the order of administration of oxytocin and placebo (P=0.001). Furthermore, path analysis showed that the NAA differences in the vmPFC triggered increases in the task-dependent fMRI signals in the vmPFC, which consequently led to improvements in the socio-communication difficulties associated with autism. The present study suggests that the beneficial effects of oxytocin are not limited to the autistic behavior elicited by our psychological task, but may generalize to other autistic behavioral problems associated with the vmPFC.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Oxytocin's neurochemical effects in the medial prefrontal cortex underlie recovery of task-specific brain activity in autism: a randomized controlled trial |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/mp.2014.74 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/mp.2014.74 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. |
| Keywords: | Administration, Intranasal, Adult, Aspartic Acid, Autistic Disorder, Double-Blind Method, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, Male, Oxygen, Oxytocics, Oxytocin, Prefrontal Cortex, Protons, Recovery of Function, Retrospective Studies, Time Factors, Young Adult |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1476948 |
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