(Press-News.org) Girls with autism display less repetitive and restricted behavior than boys do, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
The study also found that brain differences between boys and girls with autism help explain this discrepancy.
The study, which will be published online Sept. 3 in Molecular Autism, gives the best evidence to date that boys and girls exhibit the developmental disorder differently.
"We wanted to know which specific clinical manifestations of autism show significant gender differences, and whether patterns in the brain's gray matter could explain behavioral differences," said the study's senior author, Vinod Menon, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. Knowledge of the difference could help clinicians better recognize and treat autism in both sexes, he added. "Understanding this is really quite crucial clinically."
"We found strong evidence for gender differences in autism," said postdoctoral scholar Kaustubh Supekar, PhD, the study's lead author. The researchers used two large, public databases to examine nearly 800 children with high-functioning forms of autism in the United States, he said.
Repetitive and restricted behavior is perhaps the most widely recognized of the three core features of autism. It can show up as a child's preoccupation with a narrow interest, inflexibility about routines or repetitive motions such as hand-flapping. The other core features of autism are social and communication deficits.
More boys with high-functioning autism
Among children diagnosed with the high-functioning form of autism, boys outnumber girls by four to one. Scientists were interested in comparing the expression of core features of the disorder between sexes because they have long suspected girls with autism may display symptoms differently, causing them to be underdiagnosed or making it harder for them to get the most appropriate treatment.
"Autism has primarily been studied from the viewpoint of boys with the disorder," said Menon, who holds the Rachael L. and Walter F. Nichols, MD, Professorship. "Understanding gender differences can help in identifying the behavioral skills that are most important to remediate in girls vis-a-vis boys."
The study examined the severity of autism symptoms in 128 girls and 614 boys registered with the National Database for Autism Research. The children ranged in age from 7 to 13, had IQ scores above 70, and had been evaluated with standard tests for autistic behavior. The boys and girls were matched for age, and had the same average IQ. Girls and boys had similar scores for social behavior and communication. But girls had lower (more normal) scores on a standard measurement of repetitive and restricted behaviors.
The researchers then examined data from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange that included structural MRI brain scans of 25 boys with autism, 25 girls with autism, 19 typically developing boys and 19 typically developing girls. The individuals among the groups were matched for age and IQ. The researchers again found that girls and boys did not differ on social behavior and communication skills, but that girls had less-severe repetitive and restricted behaviors. "This replication provides the strongest evidence to date for gender differences in a core phenotypic feature of autism," Menon said.
Brain-structure differences
The brain-scan analysis revealed several gender differences in brain structure between typically developing boys and girls, consistent with the findings of earlier studies.
Children with autism, however, had a dissimilar set of gender differences in their brains -- specifically, in the motor cortex, supplementary motor area and a portion of the cerebellum. These regions affect motor function and planning of motor activity. The researchers noted that many repetitive behaviors, such as hand-flapping, have a motor component. The study demonstrated that patterns of gray matter in these motor regions could accurately distinguish girls from boys with autism, Supekar said. The researchers found that parts of the motor system that contributed to individual scores for repetitive and restricted behaviors were different in boys and girls.
"Girls and boys with autism differ in their clinical and neurobiological characteristics, and their brains are patterned in ways that contribute differently to behavioral impairments," Menon said.
"The discovery of gender differences in both behavioral and brain measures suggests that clinicians may want to focus diagnosis and treatments for autistic girls differently than boys," Supekar added.
INFORMATION:
This research was supported by a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, an Atherton Investigator Award, the National Institutes of Health (grant MH084164) and the Simons Foundation.
Creation of the ABIDE data set was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (grants K23MH087770 and R03MH096321), the Leon Levy Foundation, Joseph P. Healy, and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. Menon is a member of the Stanford Child Health Research Institute.
Stanford's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences also supported the research.
The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://med.stanford.edu/school.html. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford. For information about all three, please visit http://med.stanford.edu.
Print media contact: Erin Digitale at (650) 724-9175 (digitale@stanford.edu)
Broadcast media contact: Margarita Gallardo at (650) 723-7897 (mjgallardo@stanford.edu)
Each extra hour per day spent watching TV, using the internet or playing computer games during Year 10 is associated with poorer grades at GCSE at age 16, according to research from the University of Cambridge. In a study published today in the open access International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, researchers also found that pupils doing an extra hour of daily homework and reading performed significantly better than their peers. However, the level of physical activity had no effect on academic performance.
The link between physical activity ...
Metabolic or bariatric surgery may be more effective than standard medical treatments for the long-term control of type 2 diabetes in obese patients, according to a new study by King's College London and the Universita Cattolica in Rome, Italy. The study, published in the Lancet, is the first to provide data on five-year outcomes of surgery from a randomized clinical trial specifically designed to compare this new approach against standard medical therapy for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
A number of studies have shown that bariatric or weight-loss surgery can result ...
Astronomers from the University of Cambridge have developed a new, highly accurate method of measuring the distances between stars, which could be used to measure the size of the galaxy, enabling greater understanding of how it evolved.
Using a technique which searches out stellar 'twins', the researchers have been able to measure distances between stars with far greater precision than is possible using typical model-dependent methods. The technique could be a valuable complement to the Gaia satellite - which is creating a three-dimensional map of the sky over five years ...
Many doctors working in India's private hospitals are under pressure to carry out unnecessary tests and procedures to meet revenue targets, according to The BMJ this week.
In a special report published today, Meera Kay, a journalist in Bangalore, asks what can be done about financial targets for doctors working in profit driven hospitals that lead to expensive but unnecessary tests and surgery that also come with risk of harm?
According to Dr Gautam Mistry, a cardiologist in Kolkata, such unethical practices are widely known about in medical circles but public discourse ...
Among 51 military service members who experienced severe acute kidney injury during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 88% of the injuries were due to blasts or projectiles.
Twenty-two percent of the patients died within 60 days. Although still high, this mortality rate is significantly less than might be expected historically.
The majority of survivors completely recovered their kidney function.
Washington, DC (September 3, 2015) -- Acute kidney injury (AKI) leading to an abrupt or rapid decline in kidney function is a serious and increasingly prevalent condition. While ...
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Using a new technique to analyze 52 years of international conflict, researchers suggest that there may be no such thing as a "democratic peace."
In addition, a model developed with this new technique was found to predict international conflict five and even ten years in the future better than any existing model.
Democratic peace is the widely held theory that democracies are less likely to go to war against each other than countries with other types of government.
In the new study, researchers found that economic trade relationships and participation ...
Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have documented the accuracy of three new tests for more rapidly diagnosing drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis (TB), which are much harder and more expensive to treat and which, experts say, represent a major threat to global public health.
The study is published online in the current issue of PLOS ONE.
"Our study shows that TB testing that once took two to three months can now be done in as little as a day," said co-author Richard Garfein, PhD, professor in the Division of Global Public Health ...
Earth's species are disappearing at an astonishing--and troubling--rate. As human activity continues to put pressure on ecosystems around the world, the rate of loss continues to climb. How we slow this devastating loss and protect the enormous number of species on Earth is of considerable importance, and debate.
Unfortunately, it is not feasible to simply protect everything. Limited funds require conservation planners and policy makers to prioritize the preservation of specific regions and ecosystems. An often-used strategy is to identify areas of high species richness ...
September 3, 2015 - Men and women exposed in early gestation to the man-made Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 in regions with extreme food shortages were 1.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in adulthood. In regions with severe famine there was a 1.3 fold rise in the odds of Type 2 diabetes, and there was no diabetes increase among individuals born in regions with no famine.
Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, the Komisarenko Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism in Kiev, Ukraine, and the Cheboratev Institute of Gerontology ...
MADISON, Wis. -- "Gaydar" -- the purported ability to infer whether people are gay or straight based on their appearance -- seemed to get a scientific boost from a 2008 study that concluded people could accurately guess someone's sexual orientation based on photographs of their faces.
In a new paper published in the Journal of Sex Research, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison challenge what they call "the gaydar myth." William Cox, an assistant scientist in the Department of Psychology and the lead author, says gaydar isn't accurate and is actually a harmful ...
