By Robert Preidt
HealthDay reporter
THURSDAY, April 22, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Autism appears to develop differently in girls and boys, so the results of research done primarily on boys may not apply to girls, according to a new study.
Autism spectrum disorders are four times more common in boys, which may explain why there is far less research into autism in girls.
“This new study provides us with a roadmap to understanding how current and future evidence-based interventions can be better tailored to the underlying brain and genetic profiles so we can get the right treatment for the right person,” said Senior Investigator Kevin Pelphrey. He is an autism expert in the School of Medicine and the Brain Institute at the University of Virginia.
“This broadly improves our understanding of autism by showing that there can be very different causes for boys and girls,” added Pelphrey in a university press release.
For the study, the researchers combined brain imaging with genetic testing to learn more about autism in girls.
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Functional MRI was used to study brain activity during social interactions. It was found that girls with autism use different areas of their brain than girls without autism.
The difference between girls with and without autism was not the same as the difference between boys with and without autism, which means that the brain mechanisms involved in autism vary by gender, according to the study’s authors.
The researchers also found that girls with autism had much greater numbers of rare variants of genes that were active during early development of a region of the brain called the striatum. It is believed that part of the striatum is involved in interpreting social interaction and language.
The results were published in Brain magazine on April 16.
Ultimately, Pelphrey said, the team hopes to use the results to develop new strategies for treating autism that are tailored to girls.
More information
The American Academy of Pediatrics is more concerned with autism.
Source: University of Virginia, press release, April 20, 2021
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