19/01/2026
“Now, a new study in The American Journal of Psychiatry has found that brains of autistic people have fewer of a specific kind of receptor for glutamate, the most common excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain. The reduced availability of these receptors may be associated with various characteristics linked to autism.”
Fewer glutamate receptors may actually increase extracellular glutamate and glutamate accumulation. Excess glutamate is neurotoxic and damages the mitochondria.
Imaging Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 5 and Excitatory Neural Activity in Autism
Adam J. Naples, Ph.D., Yanghong Yang, M.D., Paul Gravel, Ph.D., Takuya Toyonaga, M.D., Ph.D., Faranak Ebrahimian Sadabad, M.D., Sheida Koohsari, M.D., Brian Pittman, M.S., Jean-Dominique Gallezot, Ph.D., Lauren Pisani, B.A., Caroline Finn, M.A., Sophie Cramer-Benjamin, B.A., Nicole Herman, B.S., Lindsey H. Rosenthal, B.S., Cassandra J. Franke, B.S., Bridget M. Walicki, M.Eng., Isabel G. Rodden, B.A., Ansel T. Hillmer, Ph.D., Irina Esterlis, Ph.D., Jim Ropchan, Ph.D., Nabeel Nabulsi, Ph.D., Yiyun Huang, Ph.D., Julie M. Wolf, Ph.D., Richard E. Carson, Ph.D., James C. McPartland, Ph.D., David Matuskey, M.D.
https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/molecular-difference-in-autistic-brains/