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Volume 6 Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior Psychiatry Neuro 2018
November 12-13, 2018
November 12-13, 2018 Dubai, UAE
30th International Conference on
&
Joint Meeting on
Psychiatry and Mental Health
25 th Cognitive Neuroscience Congress
Investigation of serum levels of leptin, ghrelin and growth hormone in Bahraini children with autism
Ghada Al-Kafaji
Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain
Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social communication and/ or interaction
and repetitive patterns of behaviour, associated with different levels of cognitive impairments. The exact cause and the
pathogenicity of autismare still poorly understood. Recent studies suggest that peptide hormones which act as neurotransmitters
on neurological systems may be implicated in the pathogenicity of autism. In this investigation, we measured serum levels of
leptin, ghrelin, and growth hormone (GH) in 40 age-matched Bahraini children, 20 with autism (16 males and 4 females) and
20 healthy children (13 males and 7 females) using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method. Leptin levels were found
to be significantly higher in children with autism (78.05±17.99) than in healthy control children (19.96±11.20), (P=0.038).
Conversely, ghrelin levels were lower in children with autism (62.40±16.98) than in controls (91.50±36.30), however, without
reaching statistical significance (P=0.32). Similarly, GH levels were lower in children with autism (0.63±0.02) than in controls
(0.72±0.09) but didn't reach statistical significance (P=0.33). Multivariate regression analysis confirmed a direct association
between higher leptin levels and autism incidence (OR: 0.896, 95% CI: 0.816-0.984, P=0.021), and this association remained
significant after adjustment for age, sex and body mass index (OR: 0.800, 95% CI: 0.669-0.956, P=0.014). The significantly
higher levels of leptin in autistic children may suggest an important role of this hormone in the pathophysiology of autism.
While the levels of ghrelin and GH seemed to be low in autistic children, both were not significantly different than in controls.
These initial findings were based on a small group of children and further validation studies with a larger sample size are
required to clarify the relation of these hormones with autism.
Biography
Al-Kafaji is an Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics in the Department of Molecular Medicine and the Director of Personalized Medicine Master Program at
the College of Medicine. She obtained her MSC degree in Molecular Biology from Baghdad University in Iraq, and her PhD degree in Molecular Genetics from
King's College London, University of London, UK. In the U.K, she worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Medicine, King's College London,
and as an Assistant Professor in Molecular Genetics at the College of Science, University College Kensington. Dr. Al-Kafaji is involved in lecturing and tutoring of
undergraduate and graduate students and supervising graduate theses. Her research interest includes genetic variations of complex diseases, novel biomarkers for
cancer prediction and other complex diseases. She has abundant publications in the area of molecular genetics that have been cited over 200 times. Dr. Al-Kafaji
participated as an active member in many International Scientific Associations. She acted as potential reviewer for many journals and received several certificates
of excellence in reviewing scientific articles. She also received a number of awards for best presentations and outstanding work in regional and international conferences.
Ghada Al-Kafaji, J Child Adolesc Behav 2018, Volume 6
DOI: 10.4172/2375-4494-C2-008