Ocytocine et modèles animaux pour le "trouble du spectre de l'autisme"

Aperçu: G.M.

Au cours de la dernière décennie, il y a eu un intérêt important dans l'utilisation de l'ocytocine pour traiter les déficits de comportement social dans le TSA. Cependant, on a accordé peu d'attention pour savoir si le système d'ocytocine est perturbé dans des sous-groupes de personnes avec un diagnostic de TSA et si ces personnes sont susceptibles de bénéficier davantage d'un traitement par l'ocytocine. 

Cela peut être dû en partie à l'énorme hétérogénéité des TSA et au manque de méthodes pour soigneusement sonder le système OXT chez les sujets humains. Les modèles animaux pour le TSA sont des outils précieux pour clarifier l'implication du système d'ocytocine dans le TSA.

 

Curr Top Behav Neurosci. 2017 Sep 2. doi: 10.1007/7854_2017_15.

Oxytocin and Animal Models for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Wagner S¹, Harony-Nicolas H^2,3.

Author information

1

Sagol Department of Neurobiology, The University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.

2

Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. Hala.Harony-Nicolas@mssm.edu.

3

Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. Hala.Harony-Nicolas@mssm.edu.

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of complex neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by deficits in social communication and by repetitive and stereotypic patterns of behaviors, with no pharmacological treatments available to treat these core symptoms. Oxytocin is a neuropeptide that powerfully regulates mammalian social behavior and has been shown to exert pro-social effects when administered intranasally to healthy human subjects. In the last decade, there has been a significant interest in using oxytocin to treat social behavior deficits in ASD. However, little attention has been paid to whether the oxytocin system is perturbed in subgroups of individuals with ASD and whether these individuals are likely to benefit more from an oxytocin treatment. This oversight may in part be due to the enormous heterogeneity of ASD and the lack of methods to carefully probe the OXT system in human subjects. Animal models for ASD are valuable tools to clarify the implication of the oxytocin system in ASD and can help determine whether perturbation in this system should be considered in future clinical studies as stratifying biomarkers to inform targeted treatments in subgroups of individuals with ASD. In this chapter, we review the literature on genetic- and environmental-based animal models for ASD, in which perturbations in the oxytocin system and/or the effect of oxytocin administration on the ASD-associated phenotype have been investigated.

PMID:28864977

DOI:10.1007/7854_2017_15