Autism is already a mysterious disorder and to make it even more puzzling there are noticeable differences in cases depending on gender. For every girl that receives the diagnosis of autism there are four boys that are diagnosed, a disparity that researchers had not yet fully explained.
The reasons why girls are less often diagnosed may be both biological and social
A new study published in the journal Molecular Autism compared the corpus callosum of 112 boys and 27 girls with autism between ages 3 and 5 years old with a control sample of 53 boys and 29 girls without autism to try and find further reasoning for this disparity. Researchers from the UC Davis MIND Institute used the process of diffusion-tensor imaging, to look at the largest neural fiber bundle in the brain known as at the corpus callosum in the young kids as prior research has shown differences in this area of the brain among people with autism.
“They found that the organization of these fibres was different in boys compared with girls, especially in the frontal lobes, which play a role in executive functions. “The sample size is still limited, but this work adds to growing body of work suggesting boys and girls with autism have different underlying neuroanatomical differences,” said study author Christine Wu Nordahl, an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, in an email.”
A study previously reviewed on entclinic.com.au looked into this same phenomenon earlier this year. This study was conducted by a separate group of researchers who found notable differences in symptoms between autistic boys and girls and suggested this to be one of the reasons autism repeatedly goes unnoticed or diagnosed at a later age in girls. The study highlights that girls generally display less obvious behavioural symptoms at a young age than boys.
“One of the reasons females with autism are less understood than males is that most research studies do not have equal numbers of boys and girls, says Nordahl. “This is not surprising, given that there are so many more males with autism than females,” she says. “We need to do a better job of trying to recruit females with autism into our studies so that we can fully explore differences between males and females with autism.”
Nordahl highlighted that understanding gender differences in autism has an effect on how kids are diagnosed the treatment approaches that are taken. Understanding the biological differences that are at work will lead to a better understanding of autism and the most appropriate treatment interventions.