These findings suggest that secretin promotes the metabolism of serotonin and dopamine in the central nervous system, which may contribute to improvement in clinical symptoms of autism.
Since autism is hypothesized to be a hypoglutamatergic disorder we investigated the in vivo effects of secretin on extracellular amino acids in the rat brain.
Recent observations that the deficits in social reciprocity skills seen in young (3-4-year-old) autistic children are improved after secretin infusions suggest an additional influence on neuronal activity.We show here that i.v. administration of secretin in rats induces Fos protein expression in the neurons of the central amygdala as well as the area postrema, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, external lateral parabrachial nucleus and supraoptic nucleus.