Female protective effect: Yale researchers find clues to sex differences in autism

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New Haven, Conn. -- It is well established that autism occurs much more frequently in boys than in girls, and that girls seem to have a greater resilience to developing the condition. It has been unclear, however, why that is.
In a new Yale-led study, researchers find that autism may develop in different regions of the brain in girls than boys and that girls with autism have a larger number of genetic mutations than boys, suggesting that they require a larger "genetic hit" to develop the disorder.
The findings appear in the April 16 edition of the journal
Brain.
"We know so little about how autism unfolds in the brain," said Dr. Abha Gupta, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine and lead author of the study. "It's important to be able to land on spots where the dysfunction might arise because that gives us more traction into where in the brain to look. We need to be accurate about this."

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