Chie Shimmura, Shiro Suda, Kenji J. Tsuchiya, Kenji Hashimoto, Koji Ohno, Hideo Matsuzaki, Keiko Iwata, Kaori Matsumoto, Tomoyasu Wakuda, Yosuke Kameno, Katsuaki Suzuki, Masatsugu Tsujii, Kazuhiko Nakamura, Nori Takei, Norio Mori

It has recently been hypothesized that hyperglutamatergia in the brain is involved in the pathophysiology of autism. However, there is no conclusive evidence of the validity of this hypothesis. As peripheral glutamate/glutamine levels have been reported to be correlated with those of the central nervous system, the authors examined whether the levels of 25 amino acids, including glutamate and glutamine, in the platelet-poor plasma of drug-naïve, male children with high-functioning autism (HFA) would be altered compared with those of normal controls.