ArticleJournal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry2012
Examining autism spectrum disorders by biomarkers: example from the oxytocin and serotonin systems.
Article in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 77 citations in OpenAlex.
- Presymptomatic Biological, Structural, and Functional Diagnostic Biomarkers of Autism Spectrum Disorder.Journal of neurochemistry · 2025Pooled it
- C-low threshold mechanoreceptors: a novel target for health-tech in an increasingly touch-deprived world.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Review
- Novel therapeutics in autism spectrum disorder.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2026Review
- Oxytocin and opioid antagonists: A dual approach to improving social behavior.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Oxytocin and its links through scientific lineage.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- Hypothalamus, Neuropeptides and Socioemotional Behavior.Brain sciences · 2023Article
- Metabolomics: Perspectives on Clinical Employment in Autism Spectrum Disorder.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Utility of Downstream Biomarkers to Assess and Optimize Intranasal Delivery of Oxytocin.Pharmaceutics · 2022Article
- Functional Neuroimaging of Human Hypothalamus in Socioemotional Behavior: A Systematic Review.Brain sciences · 2022Review
- Intraamygdaloid Oxytocin Reduces Anxiety in the Valproate-Induced Autism Rat Model.Biomedicines · 2022Article
- Review
- Rare Opportunities for Insights Into Serotonergic Contributions to Brain and Bowel Disorders: Studies of the SERT Ala56 Mouse.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2021Article
- Intersubjectivity: Conceptual Considerations in Meaning-Making With a Clinical Illustration.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Morphofunctional Alterations of the Hypothalamus and Social Behavior in Autism Spectrum Disorders.Brain sciences · 2020Review
- Applications of Near Infrared Photoacoustic Spectroscopy for Analysis of Human Respiration: A Review.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Investigating Potential Biomarkers in Autism Spectrum Disorder.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2019Article
- Interaction of oxytocin level and past depression may predict postpartum depressive symptom severity.Archives of women's mental health · 2016Article
- The serotonin system in autism spectrum disorder: From biomarker to animal models.Neuroscience · 2016Review
- Low oxytocin and melatonin levels and their possible role in the diagnosis and prognosis in Iraqi autistic children.Saudi medical journal · 2016Article
- Variants in Adjacent Oxytocin/Vasopressin Gene Region and Associations with ASD Diagnosis and Other Autism Related Endophenotypes.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
9 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heritable but highly heterogeneous neuropsychiatric syndrome, which poses challenges for research relying solely on behavioral symptoms or diagnosis. Examining biomarkers may give us ways to identify individuals who demonstrate specific developmental trajectories and etiological factors related to ASD. Plasma oxytocin (OT) and whole-blood serotonin (5-HT) levels are consistently altered in some individuals with ASD. Reciprocal relationships have been described between brain oxytocin and serotonin systems during development. We therefore investigated the relationship between these peripheral biomarkers as well as their relationships with age.
methodIn our first study, we analyzed correlations between these two biomarkers in 31 children and adolescents who were diagnosed with autism and were not on medications. In our second study, we explored whether whole-blood 5-HT levels are altered in mice lacking the oxytocin receptor gene Oxtr.
resultsIn humans, OT and 5-HT were negatively correlated with each other (p < .05) and this relationship was most prominent in children less than 11 years old. Paralleling human findings, mice lacking Oxtr showed increased whole-blood 5-HT levels (p = .05), with this effect driven exclusively by mice less than 4 months old (p < .01).
conclusionsIdentifying relationships between identified ASD biomarkers may be a useful approach to connect otherwise disparate findings that span multiple systems in this heterogeneous disorder. Using neurochemical biomarkers to perform parallel studies in animal and human populations within a developmental context is a plausible approach to probe the root causes of ASD and to identify potential interventions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.