The DOI matches its Crossref record; 74 of the 74 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Oxytocin enhances brain function in children with autism
Open accessAbstract
Significance: This article presents our discovery that intranasal administration of oxytocin enhances activity in the brain for socially meaningful stimuli and attenuates its response to nonsocially meaningful stimuli in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as measured via functional MRI. We also identified a relationship between changes in salivary oxytocin following administration and enhancements in brain function. These discoveries are particularly important given the urgent need for treatments that target the core social dysfunction in ASD. The functional neural attunement we demonstrated might facilitate social learning, thus potentially bringing about long-term change in neural systems and subsequent behavioral improvements. Our results illustrate the power of a translational neuroscience approach to facilitate the development of pharmacological interventions for neurodevelopmental disorders like ASD.
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“These results have been supported by functional neuroimaging studies involving persons with autism spectrum disorder, which have shown differences in regional brain activation in response to social stimuli after the administration of intranasal oxytocin, as compared with placebo.11,15–17”
From Intranasal Oxytocin in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (2021) · cites this paper as [15]
In the citing paper
“The current finding is consistent with a prior neuroimaging study demonstrating that oxytocin administration enhances STS activity in individuals with autism (37), and with a recent finding that OXTR methylation is associated with STS activity (6).”
From Epigenetic modification of OXT and human sociability (2016) · cites this paper as [37]
In the citing paper
“Oxytocin-enhanced therapy would have the combined benefits of increasing the salience of information coming from the therapist [63,64], promoting synaptic plasticity [65], and facilitating learning by modulating circuit-level neural activity [37*,66].”
From Translational opportunities for circuit-based social neuroscience: advancing 21st century psychiatry (2021) · cites this paper as [63]
In the citing paper
“At the neural networks level, it has been shown that intranasal OXT leads to increased activation in the brain regions known to be involved in perceiving and thinking about social-emotional information and enhances effective connectivity between nodes of the brain’s reward and socioemotional processing systems [87, 88].”
From An Update on Psychopharmacological Treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorder (2022) · cites this paper as [88]
In the citing paper
“our own neuroimaging work demonstrating OT-enhanced neural attunement to visual social cues37”
From Intranasal oxytocin enhances connectivity in the neural circuitry supporting social motivation and social perception in children with autism (2016) · cites this paper as [37]
In the citing paper
“these results show that in ASD, OT may not only serve to enhance neural activity to “preferred” stimuli, but also improve communication among brain regions involved in social motivation and perception.”
From Intranasal oxytocin enhances connectivity in the neural circuitry supporting social motivation and social perception in children with autism (2016) · cites this paper as [37]
In the citing paper
“the current results illustrate a discrete aspect of OT’s effect captured by measures of connectivity”
From Intranasal oxytocin enhances connectivity in the neural circuitry supporting social motivation and social perception in children with autism (2016) · cites this paper as [37]
In the citing paper
“While we have recently reported on OT’s ability to enhance the function of several key nodes of the social brain in ASD37”
From Intranasal oxytocin enhances connectivity in the neural circuitry supporting social motivation and social perception in children with autism (2016) · cites this paper as [37]
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Citations
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“These neural systems-level findings indicate that OT enhances activity in key nodes of the neural circuits that have been previously implicated in reward (dorsal and ventral striatum, including the NAcc) (29, 30); social attention, perception, and cognition (premotor cortex, posterior cingulate, inferior parietal lobu…”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Gordon, I., Vander Wyk, B. C., Bennett, R. H., Cordeaux, C., Lucas, M. V., Eilbott, J. A., Zagoory-Sharon, O., Leckman, J. F., Feldman, R., & Pelphrey, K. A.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience, Yale Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520;
- The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 52900, Israel; and
- Bar-Ilan University (IL)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2013-12-02
- Volume
- 110
- Issue
- 52
- Pages
- 20953-20958
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC3876263
- OpenAlex
- W2007655600
- Cited by
- 336
- References
- 74
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 32 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 34 · 2016: 34 · 2015: 47 · 2014: 39 · 2013: 4
- FWCI
- 62.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Yale University
- Lee Foundation
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH084080, K01MH071284, L40 MH071890)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R56NS035193, R01NS035193)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Keywords
- oxytocin, autism spectrum disorder, high-functioning autism, social cognition, social judgment, intranasal administration, brain activity, striatum, nucleus accumbens, amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, superior temporal sulcus, salience, social attunement, children
- MeSH terms
- Administration, Intranasal, Adolescent, Amygdala, Child, Child Development Disorders, Pervasive, Female, Frontal Lobe, Humans, Judgment, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Oxytocin, Saliva, Social Adjustment
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