Brain MR spectroscopy in autism spectrum disorder - the GABA excitatory/inhibitory imbalance theory revisited

Brix, Maiken K., Ersland, Lars, Hugdahl, Kenneth, Grüner, Renate, Posserud, Maj-Britt, Hammar, Åsa, Craven, Alexander R., Noeske, Ralph, Evans, Christopher John ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6619-4245, Walker, Hanne B., Midtvedt, Tore and Beyer, Mona K. 2015. Brain MR spectroscopy in autism spectrum disorder - the GABA excitatory/inhibitory imbalance theory revisited. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9 , 00365. 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00365

Preview

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) from voxels placed in the left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was measured from 14 boys with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and 24 gender and age-matched typically developing (TD) control group. Our main aims were to compare the concentration of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) between the two groups, and to investigate the relationship between brain metabolites and autism symptom severity in the ASD group. We did find a significant negative correlation in the ASD group between Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) and GABA+/Cr, which may imply that severity of symptoms in ASD is associated with differences in the level of GABA in the brain, supporting the excitatory/inhibitory (E/I) imbalance theory. However we did not find a significant difference between the two groups in GABA levels.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC) Psychology
Subjects:	R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Additional Information:	This Document is protected by copyright and was first published by Frontiers. All rights reserved. It is reproduced with permission
Publisher:	Frontiers Research Foundation
ISSN:	1662-5161
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Date of Acceptance:	8 June 2015
Last Modified:	06 May 2023 01:22
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/74987

Citation Data

Cited 35 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item