Researchers recently uncovered evidence that the brains of males and females with autism are organized differently, which could contribute to how each gender experiences symptoms.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) manifests discordantly between boys and girls. At a ratio of 1 to 4, ASD is more frequently diagnosed in males, and previous studies have shown that females who are diagnosed with the neurodevelopmental disorder tend to experience symptoms on a less severe scale.
“There is limited research examining the neurobiological differences between females and males with ASD,” lead author, Kaustubh Supekar, PhD, with the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, and co-authors explained. “Additionally, how gender differences in neurobiology relate to gender differences in the clinical symptomatology of the disorder is also not known.”
Understanding if and how the brains of children with ASD might differ based on gender could help clinicians to cater treatments on an individual level. This is what led the experts at the Stanford University School of Medicine to compare hundreds of MRI brain scans from children with ASD to images from a cohort of typically developing boys and girls.
Using such scans, researchers were able to develop and validate a convolutional neural network that could accurately differentiate between males and females with autism. When the algorithm was applied to MRIs from the group of typically developing children, it was unable to differentiate gender between neurotypical girls and boys. This led the experts to conclude that gender differences in the functional brain organization in ASD do exist.
Additionally, patterns of connectivity associated with motor, language and visuospatial attentional systems varied widely between genders. Differences between the primary motor cortex, supplementary motor area, parietal and lateral occipital cortex and middle and superior temporal gyri tended to be the greatest indicator of motor symptom severity, with girls who displayed patterns similar to the boys’ having more marked symptoms.
“Our discovery of robust neurobiological gender differences in ASD psychopathology has the potential to transform our understanding of the diverse aetiologies of the disorder, as well as inform the development of gender-specific diagnosis and treatment strategies,” the authors concluded.
The detailed research can be viewed in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
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In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She joined Innovate Healthcare in 2021 and has since put her unique expertise to use in her editorial role with Health Imaging.