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Review
. 2016 Apr 26;19(6):647-655.
doi: 10.1038/nn.4276.

Neurobiology of social behavior abnormalities in autism and Williams syndrome

Boaz Barak  1   2 , Guoping Feng  1   2   3
Affiliations
Review

Neurobiology of social behavior abnormalities in autism and Williams syndrome

Boaz Barak et al. Nat Neurosci. .

Abstract

Social behavior is a basic behavior mediated by multiple brain regions and neural circuits, and is crucial for the survival and development of animals and humans. Two neuropsychiatric disorders that have prominent social behavior abnormalities are autism spectrum disorders (ASD), which is characterized mainly by hyposociability, and Williams syndrome (WS), whose subjects exhibit hypersociability. Here we review the unique properties of social behavior in ASD and WS, and discuss the major theories in social behavior in the context of these disorders. We conclude with a discussion of the research questions needing further exploration to enhance our understanding of social behavior abnormalities.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Financial Interests Statement

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Brain regions of high relevancy to social behavior, participating in the different aspects of social behavior and their contribution to social behavior.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Autism-related genes encoding synaptic proteins at the glutamatergic synapse. These synaptic proteins participate in the formation, stabilization and function of the synapse. Proteins in which a mutation in their encoding genes affects social behavior are marked in green, while those with no direct evidence are marked in red.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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