Pelican State News

Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disability that  affects how a person learns, interacts and communicates. The disorder  can also involve a wide range of symptoms, including difficulty  regulating body temperature.

Links between the temperature deficits and social-cognitive  impairment are poorly understood, University of New Orleans psychology  professor Christopher Harshaw said.

The elevation of core body temperature that typically accompanies  social interaction—known as social hyperthermia—and temperature  regulation by the hormone oxytocin have promise as mechanisms that may  bridge that explanatory gap, according to Harshaw.

Harshaw has been awarded a three-year, $144,400 grant from the  Louisiana Board of Regents to explore the nature of social hyperthermia  using two mouse models. One set of mice have both social and  thermoregulatory deficits and the other has deficits in social behavior,  Harshaw said.

The research is entitled “Oxytocin, Social Hyperthermia, and Mouse Models of Autism Spectrum Disorder.”

“Since we know that there are temperature regulation deficits in some  cases of autism, it is possible that this research might ultimately  help understand what’s going on in autism,” Harshaw said. “Especially if  that person has difficulty regulating body temperature or is  hypersensitive to temperature, it could be that there’s a mechanism that  is affecting both social behavior and temperature regulation and, in  some cases, it might actually be oxytocin.”

Mice will be given injections that either leave active or inactivate  their receptors for the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin, then  researchers will study their temperature responses and behavior during  social interaction. In a previous study conducted by Harshaw,  researchers found that oxytocin had both pro-social and anti-social  effects.

“Part of the reason they can’t just give oxytocin to people and  expect good things to happen is that it does increase certain pro-social  behaviors especially towards familiar people but it’s also known to  jack up some aggressive behavior against unfamiliar individuals,”  Harshaw said. “That’s some of what we found in our last study … in this  study we hope to gain a better understanding of the hyperthermic  response, which may ultimately lead to a scientific understanding both  of ‘warm and fuzzy’ feelings and the 'dark side’ of social behavior.”

Researchers know social interaction results in an automatic elevation  of core body temperatures in humans and animals. However, scientists  don’t know the reason for that temperature change, Harshaw said.

“I think most people in physiology and neuroscience would assume that  it’s just a stress response,” Harshaw said. “We are looking to see if  that’s true or if it is a more special response that’s specific to  social behavior.”

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Harshaw’s research will also  eventually explore whether social hyperthermia could be part of the  body’s immune response.

Research has shown that prior to eating, animals also generate a  fever to increase their body’s temperature. Food, like social  interaction, is a common source of pathogens, Harshaw said.

“It makes sense that (fever) would be a similar defense against  pathogens you might acquire socially," Harshaw said. "I mean, COVID has  gotten people to where they can start to think about these hypotheses a  little bit more easily.”

Original source can be found here.