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Spectrum: Autism Research News

Tag: sex

May 2023
Illustration of a brain.

Cortical differences in autism vary by sex

by  /  4 May 2023

Compared with their non-autistic peers, young autistic girls have a thicker cortex that thins more quickly with age.

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April 2023
Illustration of a diverse group of bodies floating in space.

New measure characterizes gender diversity in study participants

by  /  12 April 2023

The Gender Self-Report could help autism researchers include more gender-diverse people across a range of ages and neurotypes in their work.

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March 2023
Research image of the posterior insular cortex.

Maternal immune response dulls male rats’ social radar

by  /  27 March 2023

Male rats prenatally exposed to a maternal immune response have atypical responses to other rats in distress, according to a new study.

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December 2022
A young woman sits alone in a doctor’s office.

How scientists can counteract their unwitting contributions to autism’s sex bias

by  /  20 December 2022

Common diagnostic and research practices may be adding to autism’s sex bias, but there are some simple steps scientists can take to counteract it.

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Figure showing an analysis of gene expression in cells across development.

Highly expressed genes may buffer against autism-linked mutations in girls

by  /  14 December 2022

Such high expression levels may account for the condition’s sex bias, a new preprint suggests — but not everyone agrees with that logic.

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November 2022
Light micrograph of microglia cells stained with Rio Hortega’s silver carbonate method.

Autism’s sex bias tied to glial, immune cell gene expression

by  /  22 November 2022

The function of microglia and astrocytes in the brain may mediate the intersection of sex-differential biology and autism biology.

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October 2022
Woman sits on a hospital bed and looks out of a window.

Psychiatric conditions hospitalize almost one in three autistic women by age 25

by  /  31 October 2022

The findings, based on Swedish national registry data, suggest a critical need to expand mental health services for autistic people.

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Illustration of an X chromosome against a black background.

X-chromosome variants help explain autism’s sex bias

by  /  24 October 2022

The rare variants are also linked to ADHD and Tourette syndrome, two other conditions that disproportionately affect boys and men.

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June 2022
Illustration of two figures in a field of black circles representing genetic risks. The circles surround the figure on the left and stay farther away from the figure on the right.

Common inherited variants tied to autism show sex bias in families

by  /  23 June 2022

Siblings of autistic females are more likely to have autism than siblings of autistic males are, and mothers of autistic children carry more common, autism-linked variants than fathers do.

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two toddlers, a boy and a girl, draw animals on a glass window in thin lines of blue, green and magenta.

Autism’s sex bias disappears after tracking trajectories

by  /  22 June 2022

The male sex bias in autism may in large part be a product of how common diagnostic tools measure traits in boys versus girls at a single point in time, according to a new study.

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