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Modulation of brain activation during executive functioning in autism with citalopram
- Adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are frequently prescribed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). However, there is limited evidence to support this practice. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the impact of SSRIs on brain function abnormalities in ASD. It has been suggested that some core symptoms in ASD are underpinned by deficits in executive functioning (EF). Hence, we investigated the role of the SSRI citalopram on EF networks in 19 right-handed adult males with ASD and 19 controls who did not differ in gender, age, IQ or handedness. We performed pharmacological functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare brain activity during two EF tasks (of response inhibition and sustained attention) after an acute dose of 20 mg citalopram or placebo using a randomised, double-blind, crossover design. Under placebo condition, individuals with ASD had abnormal brain activation in response inhibition regions, including inferior frontal, precentral and postcentral cortices and cerebellum. During sustained attention, individuals with ASD had abnormal brain activation in middle temporal cortex and (pre)cuneus. After citalopram administration, abnormal brain activation in inferior frontal cortex was ‘normalised’ and most of the other brain functional differences were ‘abolished’. Also, within ASD, the degree of responsivity in inferior frontal and postcentral cortices to SSRI challenge was related to plasma serotonin levels. These findings suggest that citalopram can ‘normalise’ atypical brain activation during EF in ASD. Future trials should investigate whether this shift in the biology of ASD is maintained after prolonged citalopram treatment, and if peripheral measures of serotonin predict treatment response.
Author: | Robert H. WichersORCiD, James Findon, Auke Jelsma, Vincent GiampietroORCiDGND, Vladimira Stoencheva, Dene M. Robertson, Clodagh M. MurphyORCiD, Grainne McAlonan, Christine EckerORCiD, Katya Rubia, Declan G. M. MurphyORCiD, Eileen DalyORCiD |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-533295 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-019-0641-0 |
ISSN: | 2158-3188 |
Pubmed Id: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31712584 |
Parent Title (English): | Translational Psychiatry |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Place of publication: | London |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of Completion: | 2019 |
Date of first Publication: | 2019/11/11 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2020/04/01 |
Tag: | Molecular neuroscience; Predictive markers |
Volume: | 9 |
Issue: | 1, Art. 286 |
Page Number: | 11 |
First Page: | 1 |
Last Page: | 11 |
Note: | Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
HeBIS-PPN: | 463784979 |
Institutes: | Medizin / Medizin |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit |
Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
Licence (German): | ![]() |