Simon Baron-Cohen, Cambridge University
Friday, 2 December 2016 at 15:00 in the Large Operon, EMBL Heidelberg
Simon Baron-Cohen, Autism Research Centre, Cambridge University
The prenatal sex steroid theory of autism
Abstract
Autism affects males more often than females. This is likely to be true even after taking into account under-diagnosis of females with Asperger Syndrome. One candidate biological mechanism for this is prenatal sex steroid hormones, that shape brain development, which themselves are under genetic control and have epigenetic properties. In this lecture I summarize work from our lab from 4 lines of evidence: (1) Testing if one sex steroid hormone, testosterone, measured in the womb is associated with individual differences in typical children’s language and social development, attention to detail and narrow interests, autistic traits, and brain structure and function. (2) Testing if elevated prenatal sex steroid levels are associated with autism itself. (3) Testing if proxies of prenatal sex steroid levels in people with autism are also atypical. (4) Testing if post-natal sex steroid hormones in autism are elevated. These studies implicate a specific biological pathway (the Δ4 sex steroid pathway) as one important factor in the aetiology of autism. A recent animal model testing this theory is discussed, and the ethics of translating these findings is considered.
Key Books
Baron-Cohen, S, (2003) The Essential Difference: men, women and the extreme male brain. Penguin/Basic Books.
Baron-Cohen, S, et al (2005) Prenatal testosterone in mind: Studies of amniotic fluid. MIT Press/Bradford Books.
Links: www.autismresearchcentre.com
Key Journal Articles
Baron-Cohen, S, et al (2005) Sex differences in the brain: implications for explaining autism. Science, 310, 819-823.
Baron-Cohen, S, et al (2011) Why are Autism Spectrum Conditions more prevalent in males? Public Library of Science Biology, 9, 1-10; and Supplementary Material.
Baron-Cohen, S, et al (2014). Attenuation of typical sex difference in 800 adults with autism vs. 3,900 controls. PLoS ONE, 9, e102251.
Baron-Cohen, S, et al (2015) ‘The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Test: Complete absence of typical sex difference in ~400 men and women with autism’. PLoS ONE.
Baron-Cohen, S, et al (2015) Elevated fetal steroidogenic activity in autism. Molecular Psychiatry, 1-8. and Supplementary Material.
Chakrabarti, B, et al (2009) Genes related to sex-steroids, neural growth and social-emotional behaviour are associated with autistic traits, empathy and Asperger Syndrome. Autism Research, 2, 157-177.
Lai, et al (2013) Biological sex affects the neurobiology of autism. Brain, 136, 2799-2815.
Lombardo, et al (2012) Fetal testosterone influences sexually dimorphic gray matter in the human brain. Journal of Neuroscience. 32(2): 674-80.
Pohl, et al (2014) Uncovering steroidopathy in women with autism: a latent class analysis. Molecular Autism, 5, 27.
Ruigrok, et al (2014) A meta-analysis of sex differences in human brain structure. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 39: 34-50.
Ruta, L, et al (2011) Increased serum androstenedione in adults with Autism Spectrum Conditions. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 36(8), 1154-63.
Schwarz, E, et al (2010) Sex-specific serum biomarker patterns in adults with Asperger's Syndrome. Molecular Psychiatry. 16 (12): 1213-20.
Biography
Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, University of Cambridge and Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is Director, Autism Research Centre (ARC) in Cambridge. He has a degree in Human Sciences from New College, Oxford, a PhD in Psychology from UCL, and an MPhil in Clinical Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, London and he held lectureships in these departments. He is author of Mindblindness, The Essential Difference, Prenatal Testosterone in Mind, and Zero Degrees of Empathy. He has edited scholarly anthologies including Understanding Other Minds, Synaesthesia, and The Maladapted Mind. He has written books for parents and teachers including Autism and Asperger Syndrome: The Facts, and Teaching Children with Autism to Mindread. He has celebrated autism in An Exact Mind. He is author of the DVDs Mind Reading and The Transporters, to help children with autism learn emotion recognition, both nominated for BAFTA awards. He is author of >450 scientific articles. He has supervised 30 PhD students.
Baron-Cohen has received awards from the British Psychological Society (BPS) (Spearman Medal); the American Psychological Association (McCandless Award); the BPS (May Davison Award); the Autism Award Philadelphia Autism Association/Princeton University; the Presidents’ Award (BPS); the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA), Joseph Lister Lecturer; the Lifetime Achievement Award, MENSA; and Kanner-Asperger Medal (German Society for Research into Autism). He is a Fellow of the BPS, the British Academy, and the American Psychological Association. He is Vice-President of the National Autistic Society, Autism Anglia, and was President, Psychology Section of the British Association and Vice-President, International Society for Autism Research (INSAR). He was Chair of the NICE Guideline Development Group for Autism (Adults), is Scientific Advisor or Patron to 6 autism charities, and a member of the Department of Health Program Board, Autism Strategy. He is Chair of the Psychology Section of the British Academy. He is co-editor in chief of the journal Molecular Autism and on the Editorial Board of many journals, including the Lancet Psychiatry.