Pilot Study and Review: Physiological Differences in BDNF, a Potential Biomarker in Males and Females with Autistic Disorder

Abstract

Aims There is a need for more biologic research in autistic disorder (AD) to determine if biomarkers exist that would be useful for correlating to symptom severity and/or clinical improvement during treatment. Given the fact that AD is 4 times more common in males than females, gender differences in physiological biomarkers may be present. One potential biomarker that has begun to be studied is brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF), a peptide involved in the regulation of neuronal cell survival, differentiation, and plasticity, and possessing an ability to influence neurotransmitter systems by modulating gene expression. This pilot study examined whether serum BDNF differed according to gender in children with AD and whether differences were associated with a behavioral phenotype or severity of illness. Study Design Data for this investigation were collected during the participants’ baseline visit of an intervention study. Participants were males (n=29) and females (n=7), aged 5 to 12 years diagnosed with AD. Baseline serum BDNF concentration was determined for comparison to clinical ratings using an autism severity measure and the Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Behavior Inventory (PDD-BI). Results BDNF serum concentrations were higher in females (p<0.049). The baseline BDNF value corresponded significantly to hyperactivity in females (p<0.0002) but not in males. BDNF did not correlate with severity of disease in either gender. Conclusion Although this is a small study, a better understanding of the central role of BDNF may provide insight into the pathophysiology of the disease and elucidate why gender differences exist in prevalence and behavioral phenotype of AD.

Association of Peripheral Blood Levels of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor With Autism Spectrum Disorder in Children

“…After reading the titles and abstracts, 28 appropriate articles were identified for full-text analysis. We scrutinized the 28 articles and excluded 9 articles for lack of necessary data on BDNF levels, patient samples that overlapped with another study, adult study participants, data reporting BDNF messenger RNA levels, and no data reported on healthy controls . Thus, 19 studies with 2896 unique participants met criteria for inclusion in the present meta-analysis (Figure 1).…”

Peripheral blood neurotrophic factor levels in children with autism spectrum disorder: a meta-analysis

“…After scanning the titles and abstracts, 62 articles relevant to present subject were identified for full-text scrutiny. Several studies were excluded as they did not have necessary data (11 studies) [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] ; lack of healthy controls (6 studies) [31][32][33][34][35][36] ; sample source is not peripheral blood (5 studies) 18,[37][38][39][40] ; samples derived from postmortem brain (3 studies) 10,11,41 ; participants were adults (3 study) 16,42,43 ; had patient samples that overlapped with another studies (1 study) 44 ; neurotrophic factors were studied in less than 3 articles (1 study) 19 and non-English publication (1 studies) 45 . Therefore, a total of 31 studies met the criteria were included for this meta-analysis ( Fig.…”

Serum thyroid-stimulating hormone and interleukin-8 levels in boys with autism spectrum disorder

“…When TSH was studied on the MSD platform, again, the ASD boys had an average 30% lower level vs. TD boys. We limited our study to boys because several studies report sex-specific differences in putative ASD biomarkers [ 15 , 26 , 27 ], and we only had access to a small sample of ASD and TD girls.…”