So I finished up research for my seminar and truly worked my butt of trying to read as many papers and abstracts as I possibly could to synthesize a comprehensive report on the merits of oxytocin as an autism treatment model. Below, you’ll find a link to the actual report, which I highly recommend you take a few minutes to read. Hopefully, you’ll learn as much as I did.

Summary: Oxytocin bears potential to expedite the effects of current evidence-based therapies for autism better than it would as a stand-alone treatment as not enough research exists to validate it as such. Current research does demonstrate its effectiveness at increasing attention towards social stimuli, which is central to numerous therapies focusing on the social deficits of autism. However, much more intensive drug research must be done to find the most effective dosage relative to condition and research programs need to expand to younger cohorts and female cohorts. Oxytocin levels and related genes may also prove to be part of an effective pre-screening protocol with further research.

Check out the full report here.