r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Feb 08 '25

Neuroscience Specific neurons that secrete oxytocin in the brain are disrupted in a mouse model of autism, neuroscientists have found. Stimulating these neurons restored social behaviors in these mice. These findings could help to develop new ways to treat autism.

https://www.riken.jp/en/news_pubs/research_news/rr/20250207_1/index.html
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u/shhhhquiet Feb 09 '25

They don’t. Autism is a collection of symptoms and behaviors. There’s no one known underlying cause for them to simulate. So they expose mice to a drug in utero which causes ‘reduced social behaviors,’ call it a ‘mouse autism model,’ and then try to find ways to fix the ‘autism-like’ behaviors they induced in the mice. So I guess it's possible that this will lead to useful therapies for humans, but really only if the damage the drug caused happens to be closely related to the underlying cause of autism in humans?

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u/Key-Veterinarian9085 Feb 09 '25

So I guess it's possible that this will lead to useful therapies for humans, but really only if the damage the drug caused happens to be closely related to the underlying cause of autism in humans?

And add to that there might be multiple different underlying causes, akin to how diabetes 1 and 2 have similar symptoms but different causes.

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u/tradonymous Feb 09 '25

Sort of. Even if the etiology is multifactorial, if the target of the new therapy represents a point at which these factors converge, it can still be a useful therapy.

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u/dclinnaeus Feb 09 '25

I'll have to dig into it, but I'm curious if the drug which caused reduced social behavior paralleled or made an attempt to approximate the way known autism correlated genetic markers express themselves.