ASD Girls Brains More Resilient?

hope

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Autism is less common in girls than boys. Gender difference is seen in disorders such as autism spectrum disorder [ASD] and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD] with more males affected than females.
In ASD, on average, one female will be affected to every seven males.
Now new data from recent research, is leading to a theory that the growing brain of young girls may be more resilient and to an extent better protected biologically.
The team researching, [University Hospital of Lausanne Switzerland and University of Washington School of Medicine Seattle] studied genetic data from 15,000 individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders and 800 families affected by ASD. They found females diagnosed with ASD, had a higher number of harmful genetic mutations than did the males, but that they needed to reach a higher threshold of said mutations for them to develop ASD.
It is proposed the female brain requires more extreme genetic alterations than the male brain, to produce symptoms.
Lead author Sebastien Jacquemont of the University Hospital of Lausanne, says, the data suggests it looks like there is a resilience in brain development that is much higher in females than in males, but he is quick to stress this would need additional experiments to actually prove.
Co-author Evan Eichler of the University of Washington says, there are two ways of looking at it, either boys are more susceptible or girls are better protected, taking more insult on the genome of a girl to push them into developing autism or to develop developmental delay, when compared to boys.
Personally I`m not sure at this moment in my opinion on this theory, although it does give something to think about and is very well researched.
I read a good part of the study a few days ago online, unfortunately however, it has gone and only the abstract is open to view. I have posted the link anyway, perhaps someone might find something of interest in another link.

http://www.cell.com/AJHG/abstract/S0002-9297(14)00059-7
 
Autism is less common in girls than boys. Gender difference is seen in disorders such as autism spectrum disorder [ASD] and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD] with more males affected than females.
In ASD, on average, one female will be affected to every seven males.
Now new data from recent research, is leading to a theory that the growing brain of young girls may be more resilient and to an extent better protected biologically.
The team researching, [University Hospital of Lausanne Switzerland and University of Washington School of Medicine Seattle] studied genetic data from 15,000 individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders and 800 families affected by ASD. They found females diagnosed with ASD, had a higher number of harmful genetic mutations than did the males, but that they needed to reach a higher threshold of said mutations for them to develop ASD.
It is proposed the female brain requires more extreme genetic alterations than the male brain, to produce symptoms.
Lead author Sebastien Jacquemont of the University Hospital of Lausanne, says, the data suggests it looks like there is a resilience in brain development that is much higher in females than in males, but he is quick to stress this would need additional experiments to actually prove.
Co-author Evan Eichler of the University of Washington says, there are two ways of looking at it, either boys are more susceptible or girls are better protected, taking more insult on the genome of a girl to push them into developing autism or to develop developmental delay, when compared to boys.
Personally I`m not sure at this moment in my opinion on this theory, although it does give something to think about and is very well researched.
I read a good part of the study a few days ago online, unfortunately however, it has gone and only the abstract is open to view. I have posted the link anyway, perhaps someone might find something of interest in another link.

http://www.cell.com/AJHG/abstract/S0002-9297%2814%2900059-7


Very interesting, Hope. Thanks.

It does seem to correlate with all sorts of other data on gender differences in terms of ADHD, developmental delays, language processing issues, higher rates of alcohol and drug addiction, certain kinds of mental health problems, etc.

I've wondered if some of this, if it turns out to be true, might be due to the fact that women carry two copies of the X, which has a lot of disease associations.
 
Very interesting, Hope. Thanks.

It does seem to correlate with all sorts of other data on gender differences in terms of ADHD, developmental delays, language processing issues, higher rates of alcohol and drug addiction, certain kinds of mental health problems, etc.

I've wondered if some of this, if it turns out to be true, might be due to the fact that women carry two copies of the X, which has a lot of disease associations.

That`s correct, Angela. This could possibly be one explanation, since women have two X chromosomes one X might compensate for damage to the other.
There have been a few things put forward of late concerning possible causes and I think this study in particular is one of the better ones. I do however think it is early days and as the report itself makes clear, a lot more testing needs to be done.
 
Nice, and on top of it you live longer and have a choice of picking father for your kids, not mentioning a much better choices when shopping for shoes.
It feels so unfair that I vote for returning to patriarchal ways of life just to level the playing field a bit.:28:
 
Nice, and on top of it you live longer and have a choice of picking father for your kids, not mentioning a much better choices when shopping for shoes.
It feels so unfair that I vote for returning to patriarchal ways of life just to level the playing field a bit.:28:

HA! And you have to put yourselves out there first in the mating dance, and risk rejection...well, you used to have to be the ones to do that!

Btw, that's why I thought patriarchal systems were invented in the first place...to level the playing field a bit, I mean...:innocent::innocent:
 
Nice, and on top of it you live longer and have a choice of picking father for your kids, not mentioning a much better choices when shopping for shoes.
It feels so unfair that I vote for returning to patriarchal ways of life just to level the playing field a bit.:28:
But we only get to live longer to see what five minutes of silence feels like......:28:
 

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