Serum neurotrophin concentrations in autism and mental retardation: a pilot study.

Abstract To evaluate the availability of the serum neurotrophins for the diagnosis of the patients with neurodevelopmental disorder, we measured the serum concentration of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and neurotrophin-4 (NT-4) in the patients diagnosed with autism ( n =18) and mental retardation ( n =20), or healthy controls ( n =16), using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. There tended to be a higher concentration of serum BDNF found in the autistic group ( P P P