Abstract
A review of studies on the body fluid levels of neuroactive amino acids, including glutamate, glutamine, taurine, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glycine, tryptophan, d-serine, and others, in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is given. The results reported in the literature are generally inconclusive and contradictory, but there has been considerable variation among the previous studies in terms of factors such as age, gender, number of subjects, intelligence quotient, and psychoactive medication being taken. Future studies should include simultaneous analyses of a large number of amino acids [including d-serine and branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs)] and standardization of the factors mentioned above. It may also be appropriate to use saliva sampling to detect amino acids in ASD patients in the future—this is noninvasive testing that can be done easily more frequently than other sampling, thus providing more dynamic monitoring.
Highlights
The term autism spectrum disorders (ASD) refers to neurodevelopmental diseases that affect 1–2 % of children, according to the data on the broad array of ASD (BaronCohen et al 2009)
Several lines of evidence have shown that changes in neuroactive amino acids associated with central brain functions may play a role in the pathogenesis and/or pharmacotherapy of several psychiatric disorders that have symptoms, such as cognitive impairment and problems with social interactions, in common with ASD (Coyle 2006; Grant et al 2006; Lam et al 2006; Labrie et al 2008; Ongür et al 2008; Yüksel and Öngür 2010; Durrant and Heresco-Levy 2014)
The results on amino acid levels in ASD reported in the literature are, with the possible exception of the branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), inconclusive, and contradictory
Summary
The term autism spectrum disorders (ASD) refers to neurodevelopmental diseases that affect 1–2 % of children, according to the data on the broad array of ASD (BaronCohen et al 2009). Noto et al (2014) reported that 1 out of 88 children aged 8 years will develop an ASD, with males more at risk than females. ASD is characterized by impaired social interaction skills combined with restrictive/repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association 2013). DSM-5 proposes that ASD symptoms must appear in the early childhood (infant) (American Psychiatric Association 2013). Behavioral abnormalities are often overlooked in the early stage of ASD, even experienced professionals involved in pediatric healthcare Many researchers have been trying to establish quantitative diagnostic criteria that could contribute to an early and more accurate ASD diagnosis. Many interacting factors are probably contributing to the etiology of ASD, and these potential factors are described in several excellent review articles (Lam et al 2006; Pardo and Eberhart 2007; Aoki et al 2012; Parellada et al 2014; Lozano et al 2015; Rozas et al 2015; Subramanian et al 2015; Zhang et al 2015; Martin et al 2016; Muller et al 2016; Park et al 2016); this review focuses on amino acids
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