Beta-adrenergic antagonism alters functional connectivity during associative processing in a preliminary study of individuals with and without autism.
John P Hegarty, Rachel M Zamzow, Bradley J Ferguson and 4 others
PMID 31416333WHAT IT FOUND
No confirmed effect was found.
Propranolol did not reliably improve word production, and brain connectivity changes were preliminary and not confirmed.
Key findings
01The overall drug effect on word production was only a trend and not a confirmed effect.
02Propranolol was associated with higher semantic network local efficiency, and in autism with lower fronto-parietal connectivity.
03Some drug-related connectivity findings did not survive correction for multiple comparisons.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was small and preliminary. It cannot show that propranolol helps communication or function. Correction for multiple comparisons was not applied across all tests. This raises the chance of false-positive findings. Staff could not fully blind during data acquisition because the drugs reached peak effects at different times. Some connectivity findings did not survive correction or control analyses. Participants were adults, and the authors call for younger people and broader autism severity, so it does not address children or more severe autism.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The paper is marked as supported by NIH and other government research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that propranolol improves semantic fluency or communication in autism. The overall drug effect was only a trend, and the connectivity findings were exploratory and did not survive correction.