Autism Spectrum Disorder: Neurodevelopmental Risk Factors, Biological Mechanism, and Precision Therapy.

This review looks at autism as a complex condition that's becoming more common but still lacks specific medical tests or treatments. Researchers are studying autism using animal models and examining how the brain, gut, immune system, and genes all play roles in autism. The authors discuss current treatments and the challenges of turning research discoveries into better therapies for people with autism.

This 2023 review examines autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as a complex neurodevelopmental condition with increasing prevalence but no clear diagnostic markers or targeted medications. The authors discuss multiple animal models used to understand ASD mechanisms and review behavioral pathology assessments across disciplines. Key mechanistic areas explored include gene transcription, RNA translation, synaptic signaling abnormalities, epigenetic modifications, brain-gut axis dysfunction, immune inflammation, and neural loop irregularities. The review emphasizes the need for multidisciplinary collaboration to advance understanding of neurobehavioral abnormalities and neurobiological changes in ASD, while highlighting both current therapeutic approaches and the challenges of translating research into precision clinical therapies.

The review underscores the complexity of ASD and need for precision medicine approaches. Current therapeutic limitations highlight the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration and personalized treatment strategies targeting multiple biological pathways simultaneously.

As a narrative review, this study does not present original research data or systematic analysis of evidence quality. The abstract does not specify methodology for literature selection or provide quantitative synthesis of findings from reviewed studies.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous, behaviorally defined neurodevelopmental disorder. Over the past two decades, the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders has progressively increased, however, no clear diagnostic markers and specifically targeted medications for autism have emerged. As a result, neurobehavioral abnormalities, neurobiological alterations in ASD, and the development of novel ASD pharmacological therapy necessitate multidisciplinary collaboration. In this review, we discuss the development of multiple animal models of ASD to contribute to the disease mechanisms of ASD, as well as new studies from multiple disciplines to assess the behavioral pathology of ASD.

In addition, we summarize and highlight the mechanistic advances regarding gene transcription, RNA and non-coding RNA translation, abnormal synaptic signaling pathways, epigenetic post-translational modifications, brain-gut axis, immune inflammation and neural loop abnormalities in autism to provide a theoretical basis for the next step of precision therapy. Furthermore, we review existing autism therapy tactics and limits and present challenges and opportunities for translating multidisciplinary knowledge of ASD into clinical practice.