Autism Spectrum Disorder encompasses a range of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by early deficits in social communication in addition to restricted and repetitive behaviors. Symptoms are increasingly understood to be associated with abnormalities in the coordination of neuronal assemblies responsible for processing information essential for early adaptive behaviors. Pharmacologic treatments carry evidence for clinically significant benefit of multiple impairing symptoms of ASD, yet these benefits are limited and range across a broad spectrum of medication classes, making it difficult to characterize associated neurochemical impairments. Increasing prevalence of both ASD and its pharmacologic management calls for greater understanding of the neurophysiologic basis of the disorder. This paper reviews underlying alterations in local brain regions and coordination of brain activation patterns during both resting state and taskrelated processes. We propose that new pharmacologic treatments may focus on realigning trajectories of network specialization across development by working in combination with behavioral treatments to enhance social and emotional learning by bolstering the impact of experience-induced plasticity on neuronal network connectivity.
CITATION STYLE
Kodish, I., Rockhill, C. M., & Webb, S. J. (2014). ASD: Psychopharmacologic treatments and neurophysiologic underpinnings. Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences, 21, 257–275. https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2014_298
Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.