Autism is a class of neurodevelopmental disorders in children,the core symptoms of which are impaired social interactions and repetitive and restricted behaviors and interests.The interaction of various environmental pathogenic factors and susceptibility genes leads to complex etiology,unclear pathological mechanism and lack of effective treatment for autism.Although the symptoms of autism show spectrum characteristics,the neuropathological abnormalities that express the core symptoms of autism may have great commonality,and the etiology may be the same in the circuit pathology.From the perspective of behavioral abnormalities in autism,neural circuits related to emotion regulation,motor control,and meaning representation of environmental cues must be in a key position in the expression of symptoms of autism.The midbrain dopamine(DA)system is involved in the regulation of sensorimotor,attentional and motivational functions,reward-and goal-oriented behaviors through the functional regulation of cells and synaptic activities in projective brain regions such as cortex and striatum,and its pathological changes are likely to represent the core symptoms of autism.This paper reviews the research progress of neural circuit pathology in which DA system is involved in the expression of symptoms of autism,and the main challenges faced by DA theory of autism.
维普
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