Trial reportProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2013
Examining and interpreting the female protective effect against autistic behavior.
Trial report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05811507 (Evaluation of Serum Adrenal Androgens Among Prepubertal and Pubertal Boys With Autism Spectrum Disorder), which is not on this map. Cited by 246 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Evaluation of Serum Adrenal Androgens Among Prepubertal and Pubertal Boys With Autism Spectrum Disorder
Who cites it
246 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 538 citations in OpenAlex.
- Does the Extreme Male Brain Hypothesis of Autism Apply More to Females Than Males? A Systematic and Meta-Analytic Approach.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2026Pooled it
- A systematic review and meta-analysis on the prevalence of mental disorders among children and adolescents in Europe.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Rare coding variation provides insight into the genetic architecture and phenotypic context of autism.Nature genetics · 2022Pooled it
- Sex and Diffusion Tensor Imaging of White Matter in Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review Plus Meta-analysis of the Corpus Callosum.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2018Pooled it
- Self-reported sex differences in high-functioning adults with autism: a meta-analysis.Molecular autism · 2018Pooled it
- Homozygous CHD8 mutation intensifies ASD phenotypes and attenuates sex differences.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Brain morphology network profiles in male and female youth with autism.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Sex Differences in Psychopathology and Neurocognition in Community Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorder.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2026Article
- Associations between Prenatal Perceived Stress and Child Autism-Related Traits in the ECHO Cohort.The Journal of pediatrics · 2026Article
- Global and regional insights: unravelling the epidemiological factors and burden of autism spectrum disorders with a focus on China from 1990 to 2021.BMJ paediatrics open · 2026Article
- Special Issue: Genetic Basis of Autism Spectrum Disorder.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Autism Sensory Profiles Predict Stimulus- Evoked Insula Connectivity.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Modeling rare coding variation on chromosome X provides insight into the genetics and differential sex prevalence of autism spectrum disorder.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- The inactive X chromosome as a female protector in autism and beyond.Nature genetics · 2026Review
- Mitigating Sex-Related Biases to Elucidate the Autism Phenotype.Biological psychiatry · 2026Review
- Social compatibility in opposite-sex prairie vole pairs is modulated by early-life sleep experience.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Estradiol modulates neuronal network hyperexcitability in select NDD risk genes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Chaperone mediated autophagy is deficient in spinal motoneurons of ALS patients with TDP-43 proteinopathy.Acta neuropathologica communications · 2026Article
- Cumulative environmental exposures adversely impact social behaviour and are associated with dysregulation of genes and proteins involved in epigenetic, ribosomal, and immune regulation in male mice.Inflammation research : official journal of the European Histamine Research Society ... [et al.] · 2026Article
- Sex differences in the independent and combined effects of genomic and exposomic risks for schizophrenia on distressing psychotic experiences: insights from the ABCD study.Archives of women's mental health · 2026Article
186 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Male preponderance in autistic behavioral impairment has been explained in terms of a hypothetical protective effect of female sex, yet little research has tested this hypothesis empirically. If females are protected, they should require greater etiologic load to manifest the same degree of impairment as males. The objective of this analysis was to examine whether greater familial etiologic load was associated with quantitative autistic impairments in females compared with males. Subjects included 3,842 dizygotic twin pairs from the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) and 6,040 dizygotic twin pairs from the Child and Adolescent Twin Study of Sweden (CATSS). In both samples, we compared sibling autistic traits between female and male probands, who were identified as children scoring in the top 90th and 95th percentiles of the population autistic trait distributions. In both TEDS and CATSS, siblings of female probands above the 90th percentile had significantly more autistic impairments than the siblings of male probands above the 90th percentile. The siblings of female probands above the 90th percentile also had greater categorical recurrence risk in both TEDS and CATSS. Results were similar in probands above the 95th percentile. This finding, replicated across two nationally-representative samples, suggests that female sex protects girls from autistic impairments and that girls may require greater familial etiologic load to manifest the phenotype. It provides empirical support for the hypothesis of a female protective effect against autistic behavior and can be used to inform and interpret future gene finding efforts in autism spectrum disorders.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.