Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1994 Aug;36(8):688-97.
doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8749.1994.tb11911.x.

Catecholaminergic metabolism and autism

J Martineau  1 , J Hérault, E Petit, P Guérin, L Hameury, A Perrot, J Mallet, D Sauvage, G Lelord, J P Müh
Affiliations

Catecholaminergic metabolism and autism

J Martineau et al. Dev Med Child Neurol. 1994 Aug.

Abstract

The authors determined levels of dopamine (DA) and its derivatives homovanillic acid (HVA), 3-4 dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC), 3 methoxytyramine and norepinephrine + epinephrine (NE + E) in the urine, and DA, E and NE in the whole blood of 50 autistic children aged between 1 year 11 months and 16 years. An association was tested for between markers coding for the enzymes and D3 dopaminergic receptor genes implicated in the monoaminergic pathway and autism, using restriction fragment-length polymorphism. There were significant modifications of catecholamine metabolites, but no difference for allele frequencies of the genes coding for tyrosine hydroxylase, dopamine beta hydroxylase and DRD3 in this population compared with a healthy school population matched for chronological age. However, some of the data encourage a more complete study of chromosome 11.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

  • Autism.
    Bax M. Bax M. Dev Med Child Neurol. 1994 Aug;36(8):659-60. Dev Med Child Neurol. 1994. PMID: 8050620 No abstract available.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources