Assessments of Amino Acids, Ammonia and Oxidative Stress Among Cohort of Egyptian Autistic Children: Correlations with Electroencephalogram and Disease Severity

Objective: The current study aimed to assess the profiles of plasma amino acids, serum ammonia and oxidative stress status among autistic children in terms of electroencephalogram findings and clinical severity among the cohort of autistic Egyptian children. Patients and methods: The present study included 118 Egyptian children categorized into 54 children with autism who were comparable with 64 healthy controls. Clinical assessments of cases were performed using CARS in addition to EEG records. Plasma amino acids were measured using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), while, serum ammonia and oxidative stress markers were measured using colorimetric methods for all included children. Results: The overall results revealed that 37.04% of cases had abnormal EEG findings. Amino acid profile in autistic children showed statistically significant lower levels of aspartic acid, glycine, beta-alanine, tryptophan, lysine and proline amino acids with significantly higher asparagine amino acid derivative levels among autistic patients versus the control group (p