Association between autism-like symptoms and agression with serum testosterone, oxytocin, cortisol and androstenedione in prepubertal malechildren with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

In this study, the relation between the autistic characteristics and aggressiveness of prepubertal male children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and serum oxytocin, testosterone, oxytocin and cortisol levels were researched. 83 children diagnosed with ADHD according to the DSM-V diagnostic criteria were included in this study. These children were between 6-10 years old and applied for the first time to the child and adolescent psychiatry outpatient clinic. We included only prepubertal boys into this study because of hormone changes in adolescence. Patients with additional psychiatric diagnosis other than opposite defiant disorder and those with a WISC-4 intelligence test below 75 were not included as many psychiatric disorders can affect hormone levels. Disturbance in social functioning and autistic symptoms were assessed by social response scale and theory of mind. Besides aggression levels were assessed by 'Aggression Scale for Children Parent Form' (ASCPF). Prepubertal boys diagnosed with ADHD are classified as high -low and truefalse for Autism-like Symptoms and theory of mind respectively. Serum testosterone, cortisol, androstenedione and oxytocin levels were determined from serum samples collected between 8:00- 10:00 am. We detected statistically significant difference in the blood testosterone, androstenedione and oxytocin levels between the autistic symptoms and theory of mind in patients diagnosed with ADHD. Blood testosterone levels were significantly lower in patients without autistic symptoms than in those with autistic symptoms, while oxytocin levels were significantly higher. In addition, blood androstenedione levels were significantly higher in patients with autistic symptoms. Blood testosterone and androstenedione levels were significantly higher in patients with wrong theory of mind than patients with true theory of mind, while blood oxytocin levels were significantly lower. In this study, we found a statistically significant strong relationship between the total scores of ASCPF of the patients with ADHD and the blood testosterone level, testosterone / cortisol ratio in the, and the oxytocin levels in negative. In addition we detected that there was not association between serum androstenedione level, serum cortisol level and aggression severity. According to the results, we think that oxytocin, testosterone, cortisol and androstenedione might play a role in advanced social functions such as impulsivity, aggression, autistic symptoms affecting social relations, mental theoretical disorders and emotional recognition affecting the clinic of ADHD in the same way as the social limitations of ADHD. For this reason, researches in social communication and hormone studies which are mostly investigated in autism can p