自闭症小鼠,催产素 z-bo 2020-11-05 304

　　Olga Peñagarikano and colleagues demonstrated in a mouse model of autism that oxytocin can significantly improve their social behavior, and this benefit may last for a long time if treated early.

　　Oxytocin is a hormone that helps animals build social relationships and trust; people have a strong interest in using it as a possible treatment for autism spectrum disorders, but clinical trials have so far produced mixed results.

　　In order to understand how the hormone works in the brain, researchers created a mouse with genetic autism by deleting a gene, which causes genetic developmental syndromes including autism spectrum disorders. They found that the autistic mice treated with oxytocin performed much better on behavioral tests, and they spent more time interacting with other mice than mice alone. Giving these mice a drug that stimulates the release of oxytocin in the brain will have the same effect. Anatomy revealed that the brains of mice with autism showed lower levels of the hormone, which was due to fewer neurons producing oxytocin.

　　To test whether oxytocin can affect these mice during the early developmental period when neuronal circuits are still being formed, Peñagarikano and colleagues treated these autistic mice with oxytocin daily shortly after their birth. Early treatment can have lasting benefits on the social skills of mice, and it can last more than a week after stopping treatment.

　　These results support the exploration of oxytocin as a possible treatment for certain forms of autism, and suggest that there may be a critical time window within which early treatment can help restore social skills.