There are so many stories about causes of autism, treatments and cures, almost all of which turn out to be of little or no merit or substance that it is easy to ignore the latest story to come to public attention. Of late old dads and TV watching have taken their bows on the stage. The latest buzz is about Oxytocin a hormone which scientists say assists in trust and ...... in reading emotions and social cues in others. Hence the potential tie to autism. And researchers are starting to suggest a connection to autism as both cause and cure. Beating a drum about this latest research development is probably unwarranted at this early stage. But it looks interesting so far.
http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/061206_oxytocin.htm
Dec. 13, 2006
Special to World Science
Researchers in recent years have intensely studied a hormone thought to be relevant to autism, a disorder that has stirred growing alarm. And the longer the scrutiny of the hormone, oxytocin, goes on, the longer grows a list of sometimes surprising powers attributed to it. These are prompting scientists to propose the chemical might help treat autism.
Last year, one group identified it as a hormone that helps us to trust. Now, researchers say it may also aid us with “mind reading,” or the ability to gauge other people’s emotions based on subtle social cues.
...
The Mount Sinai researchers worked with 15 people diagnosed with either autism or Asperger’s Syndrome, a similar condition often viewed as a mild form of autism. In the study, the patients received oxytocin infusions and, on a separate day, infusions of an inactive substance for comparison.
The scientists found that both treatments led to better scores on a test that involved discerning the emotional tone of pre-recorded statements, but the improvements lasted longer with oxytocin treatment.
A previous study, published in the June 2, 2005 issue of the research journal Nature, found that a whiff of oxytocin made people more likely to trust someone else to look after their cash.
Some commentators started to dub oxytocin the “trust hormone” after that. But the newest findings suggest that its powers in social functioning extend well beyond trust, into “mind-reading” ability as well, wrote researchers with Rostock University in Rostock, Germany, in Biological Psychiatry’s Nov. 28, 2006 advance online edition.
This group tested 30 healthy men on the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test,” which involves judging people’s emotional state based on photographs of their eyes. The participants sniffed either oxytocin or an inactive substance, one week apart, and were found to do better with the oxytocin.
Like the two previous studies, it was double-blind, meaning investigators weren’t aware at any given time of whether participants had gotten the real or the sham treatment.
“The ability to ‘read the mind’ of other individual, that is, to infer their mental state by interpreting subtle social cues, is indispensable in human social interaction,” the researchers wrote. Because autism is characterized both by low oxytocin and “by distinct impairments in mind-reading,” they added, “oxytocin should be considered a significant factor in the pathogenesis [cause] and treatment of autism.”
Last year, one group identified it as a hormone that helps us to trust. Now, researchers say it may also aid us with “mind reading,” or the ability to gauge other people’s emotions based on subtle social cues.
...
The Mount Sinai researchers worked with 15 people diagnosed with either autism or Asperger’s Syndrome, a similar condition often viewed as a mild form of autism. In the study, the patients received oxytocin infusions and, on a separate day, infusions of an inactive substance for comparison.
The scientists found that both treatments led to better scores on a test that involved discerning the emotional tone of pre-recorded statements, but the improvements lasted longer with oxytocin treatment.
A previous study, published in the June 2, 2005 issue of the research journal Nature, found that a whiff of oxytocin made people more likely to trust someone else to look after their cash.
Some commentators started to dub oxytocin the “trust hormone” after that. But the newest findings suggest that its powers in social functioning extend well beyond trust, into “mind-reading” ability as well, wrote researchers with Rostock University in Rostock, Germany, in Biological Psychiatry’s Nov. 28, 2006 advance online edition.
This group tested 30 healthy men on the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test,” which involves judging people’s emotional state based on photographs of their eyes. The participants sniffed either oxytocin or an inactive substance, one week apart, and were found to do better with the oxytocin.
Like the two previous studies, it was double-blind, meaning investigators weren’t aware at any given time of whether participants had gotten the real or the sham treatment.
“The ability to ‘read the mind’ of other individual, that is, to infer their mental state by interpreting subtle social cues, is indispensable in human social interaction,” the researchers wrote. Because autism is characterized both by low oxytocin and “by distinct impairments in mind-reading,” they added, “oxytocin should be considered a significant factor in the pathogenesis [cause] and treatment of autism.”
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