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Why Are Autism Spectrum Conditions More Prevalent in Males?
Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) are much more common in males, a bias that may offer clues to the etiology of this condition. Although the cause of this bias remains a mystery, we argue that it occurs because ASC is an extreme manifestation of the male brain. The extreme male brain (EMB) theory, fi...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2011
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114757/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21695109 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001081 |
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author | Baron-Cohen, Simon Lombardo, Michael V. Auyeung, Bonnie Ashwin, Emma Chakrabarti, Bhismadev Knickmeyer, Rebecca |
author_facet | Baron-Cohen, Simon Lombardo, Michael V. Auyeung, Bonnie Ashwin, Emma Chakrabarti, Bhismadev Knickmeyer, Rebecca |
author_sort | Baron-Cohen, Simon |
collection | PubMed |
description | Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) are much more common in males, a bias that may offer clues to the etiology of this condition. Although the cause of this bias remains a mystery, we argue that it occurs because ASC is an extreme manifestation of the male brain. The extreme male brain (EMB) theory, first proposed in 1997, is an extension of the Empathizing-Systemizing (E-S) theory of typical sex differences that proposes that females on average have a stronger drive to empathize while males on average have a stronger drive to systemize. In this first major update since 2005, we describe some of the evidence relating to the EMB theory of ASC and consider how typical sex differences in brain structure may be relevant to ASC. One possible biological mechanism to account for the male bias is the effect of fetal testosterone (fT). We also consider alternative biological theories, the X and Y chromosome theories, and the reduced autosomal penetrance theory. None of these theories has yet been fully confirmed or refuted, though the weight of evidence in favor of the fT theory is growing from converging sources (longitudinal amniocentesis studies from pregnancy to age 10 years old, current hormone studies, and genetic association studies of SNPs in the sex steroid pathways). Ultimately, as these theories are not mutually exclusive and ASC is multi-factorial, they may help explain the male prevalence of ASC. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3114757 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2011 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-31147572011-06-21 Why Are Autism Spectrum Conditions More Prevalent in Males? Baron-Cohen, Simon Lombardo, Michael V. Auyeung, Bonnie Ashwin, Emma Chakrabarti, Bhismadev Knickmeyer, Rebecca PLoS Biol Unsolved Mystery Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) are much more common in males, a bias that may offer clues to the etiology of this condition. Although the cause of this bias remains a mystery, we argue that it occurs because ASC is an extreme manifestation of the male brain. The extreme male brain (EMB) theory, first proposed in 1997, is an extension of the Empathizing-Systemizing (E-S) theory of typical sex differences that proposes that females on average have a stronger drive to empathize while males on average have a stronger drive to systemize. In this first major update since 2005, we describe some of the evidence relating to the EMB theory of ASC and consider how typical sex differences in brain structure may be relevant to ASC. One possible biological mechanism to account for the male bias is the effect of fetal testosterone (fT). We also consider alternative biological theories, the X and Y chromosome theories, and the reduced autosomal penetrance theory. None of these theories has yet been fully confirmed or refuted, though the weight of evidence in favor of the fT theory is growing from converging sources (longitudinal amniocentesis studies from pregnancy to age 10 years old, current hormone studies, and genetic association studies of SNPs in the sex steroid pathways). Ultimately, as these theories are not mutually exclusive and ASC is multi-factorial, they may help explain the male prevalence of ASC. Public Library of Science 2011-06-14 /pmc/articles/PMC3114757/ /pubmed/21695109 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001081 Text en Baron-Cohen et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Unsolved Mystery Baron-Cohen, Simon Lombardo, Michael V. Auyeung, Bonnie Ashwin, Emma Chakrabarti, Bhismadev Knickmeyer, Rebecca Why Are Autism Spectrum Conditions More Prevalent in Males? |
title | Why Are Autism Spectrum Conditions More Prevalent in Males? |
title_full | Why Are Autism Spectrum Conditions More Prevalent in Males? |
title_fullStr | Why Are Autism Spectrum Conditions More Prevalent in Males? |
title_full_unstemmed | Why Are Autism Spectrum Conditions More Prevalent in Males? |
title_short | Why Are Autism Spectrum Conditions More Prevalent in Males? |
title_sort | why are autism spectrum conditions more prevalent in males? |
topic | Unsolved Mystery |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114757/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21695109 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001081 |
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