All you need is love - oxytocin enhances brain activity in autistic children!

Written By: Agencies | Updated : October 8, 2014 10:20 AM IST

A new study has revealed that a single dose of the hormone oxytocin, delivered via nasal spray, can enhance brain activity while processing social information in kids suffering from autism spectrum disorders. First author Ilanit Gordon from Yale School of Medicine along with other researchers conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 17 children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders.

The participants, between the ages of 8 and 16.5, were randomly given either oxytocin spray or a placebo nasal spray during a task involving social judgements. Oxytocin is naturally occurring hormone produced in the brain and throughout the body.

'We found that brain centres associated with reward and emotion recognition responded more during social tasks when children received oxytocin instead of the placebo. Oxytocin temporarily normalized brain regions responsible for the social deficits seen in children with autism,' Gordon said.

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Gordon said oxytocin facilitated social attunement, a process that makes the brain regions involved in social behaviour and social cognition activate more for social stimuli (such as faces) and activate less for non-social stimuli (such as cars).

The study has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

What is autism?

Autism is a developmental disorder which is usually detected early in life. It is an incurable complex neurobiological condition that impacts communication, behaviour and social relationships and affects 1% people. It has become the fastest growing global disorder. In this condition, cognition skills are hampered because of altered nerve cells although it is not understood exactly why this happens. Autistic kids have trouble with basic everyday tasks and have hampered social development.

With inputs from ANI

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