SSRIs and autism
- From: Lance <LanceGary@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:11:48 -0800 (PST)
Just what is it about autism that produces the three hallmark
behaviors of social impairment, language difficulties, and rigidity,
or an "insistence on sameness'? Scientists at this year's Keystone
meeting on the pathophysiology of autism in Santa Fe, NM, are looking
for clues from a molecule we hear an awful lot about in discussions of
non-autistic brain activity: Serotonin.
It turns out that a significant number of children with autism -- up
to 30% -- have elevated levels of serotonin in their blood. The vast
majority of that is stored in platelets, which carry a serotonin
transporter, also known as SERT, which brings in serotonin from the
gut. Not surprisingly, some doctors have found that selective
serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the drugs-of-choice for
depression and related symptoms, help treat some aspects of autism,
such as anxiety and compulsive behaviors.
Randy Blakely from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in
Nashville did some digging in the gene banks from affected families,
and found multiple gain-of-function alleles at the SERT locus on
chromosome 17. When he and his team knocked out SERT in mice, they saw
changes in cortical development, adding more evidence that brain
disruptions in autism could stem, in part, from changes in SERT.
When the team looked more closely at the SERT variants and different
behaviors in autism, they found that variants in this transporter were
mostly linked to rigid and compulsive behaviors - that "insistence on
sameness" domain. (Children with these behaviors typically repeat the
same words, need rituals, and get attached to objects.) These findings
suggest that serotonin plays a strong role in this aspect of the
disorder, Blakely said. "This is a domain serotonin has more control
over than other domains."
The Scientist
http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54380/
.
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