Researchers from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine are experimenting with oxytocin, a hormone tied to social cognition, to treat symptoms of autism.
Adults with autism and Asperger's syndrome received intravenous doses of either oxytocin or a saline placebo and were then monitored for autistic behaviors. Those who had received the hormone showed a significant reduction in symptoms over those receiving the placebo infusion. They also performed better at tests which asked them to identify the emotional intonation of pre-recorded sentences and surprisingly, continued to perform better at this task at a two-week follow-up.
Read more: New research suggests oxytocin's potential for treatment of two core autism symptom domains