ArticleNature communications2016
Gene expression in human brain implicates sexually dimorphic pathways in autism spectrum disorders.
Article in Nature communications, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 168 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
168 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 316 citations in OpenAlex.
- Global prevalence of autism spectrum disorder and its gastrointestinal symptoms: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Homozygous CHD8 mutation intensifies ASD phenotypes and attenuates sex differences.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Sex differences in ferroptosis-related vulnerability to autism-like deficits in the adolescent medial prefrontal cortex following embryonic valproic acid exposure.Biology of sex differences · 2026Article
- Maternal health and autism risk: parsing direct and indirect genetic effects using 3-generation family linkage.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Single-Cell Gene Module Inference Reveals Alternative Polyadenylation Dynamics Associated with Autism.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Organization and evolution of sex-biased gene expression inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Evaluation of metabolism-related molecules in rat model of autism spectrum disorders.Experimental physiology · 2026Article
- Article
- Microglia as critical mediators linking perinatal immune stress to mental health trajectories.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Intergenerational neuroimaging's present and future: Considering sex as a biological variable to enhance knowledge of brain development through parent-offspring similarity.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2025Review
- Molecular and Genetic Mechanisms in Autism Spectrum Disorder.Annals of neurology · 2025Review
- Three-dimensional quantification of oxytocin neurons in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus reveals sex- and subregion-specific differences in two genetic mouse models of autism.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Transcriptomic Convergence and the Female Protective Effect in Autism.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Genetic and Environmental Risk Factors for Autism Spectrum Disorder in Saudi Arabia: A Systematic Review.Cureus · 2025Review
- The Long and Winding Road to Understanding Autism.NeuroSci · 2025Review
- Early establishment and life course stability of sex biases in the human brain transcriptome.Cell genomics · 2025Article
- Sex-differentiated placental methylation and gene expression regulation has implications for neonatal traits and adult diseases.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Cell-intrinsic insulin signaling defects in human iPS cell-derived hepatocytes in type 2 diabetes.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2025Article
- Genetic advances in neurodevelopmental disorders.Medical review (2021) · 2025Review
- Role of androgen receptors in sexually dimorphic phenotypes in UBE3A-dependent autism spectrum disorder.iScience · 2025Article
108 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is more prevalent in males, and the mechanisms behind this sex-differential risk are not fully understood. Two competing, but not mutually exclusive, hypotheses are that ASD risk genes are sex-differentially regulated, or alternatively, that they interact with characteristic sexually dimorphic pathways. Here we characterized sexually dimorphic gene expression in multiple data sets from neurotypical adult and prenatal human neocortical tissue, and evaluated ASD risk genes for evidence of sex-biased expression. We find no evidence for systematic sex-differential expression of ASD risk genes. Instead, we observe that genes expressed at higher levels in males are significantly enriched for genes upregulated in post-mortem autistic brain, including astrocyte and microglia markers. This suggests that it is not sex-differential regulation of ASD risk genes, but rather naturally occurring sexually dimorphic processes, potentially including neuron-glial interactions, that modulate the impact of risk variants and contribute to the sex-skewed prevalence of ASD.
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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.