自闭症患者的大脑结构具有性别差异

Male toddlers with autism have significant structural ¹ differences in their brains compared to females with the condition, according to research published in the open access journal Molecular ² Autism. The journal is publishing a special series of articles looking at the links between sex/ gender ³ and autism, which reveal additional insights into the role of prenatal sex hormones ⁴ and the 'female protective effect'., ,Autism spectrum ⁵ conditions are more common in males than in females, with a 2 or 3:1 male to female bias ⁶ in prevalence consistently found in studies. Why this is the case is still not fully ⁷ understood., ,Guest editor Meng-Chuan Lai from the Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge, UK, said: "Autism has always been perceived as a condition that occurs more often in males, which means that females are usually underrepresented in research studies. This means there's a risk that the scientific and clinical literature provides a partial, male-based understanding of autism., ,"But autism is clearly not a 'male condition'. Delineating the role that sex and gender play in the characteristics of autism, across multiple levels, may inform both our ability to identify the condition and lead to a greater understanding of its developmental psychology ⁸ and biology."