Identity recognition a promising oxytocin-relevant endophenotype to stratify autism spectrum conditions

Autism Spectrum Conditions' (ASC) heterogeneity (Geschwind and State, 2015; Lai, 2015; Szatmari, 2015) poses great challenges for the discovery of causes and effective interventions. An endophenotype-based stratification approach would accelerate the translational process from discovery of novel biological markers to development of effective individualized interventions (Kapur, 2012). Prosopagnosia, the deficit in face individual identity recognition, is a promising ASC endophenotype as it is hereditable (Wilmer, 2010; Zhu, 2010), enriched in non-affected family members (Wilson, 2010), linked to ASC-relevant oxytocin polymorphisms (Skuse, 2014; Westberg, 2016) and independent from IQ (Hedley, 2011; Zhu, CB 2010). The oxytocin (OXT) system plays a critical role in modulating social memory (Hattori, 2015; Engelmann, 1998; Ferguson, 2000; Guzman, NN 2013). In particular, OXT administration improves social memory in mice (Ferguson, 2000; Benelli, 1995), and humans (Rimmele, 2009), and can normalize face memory in humans with developmental prosopagnosia (Bate, 2014).