ArticleMolecular psychiatry2020
Sex-specific impact of prenatal androgens on social brain default mode subsystems.
Article in Molecular psychiatry, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers, 2 of them syntheses 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
37 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 57 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neuropsychiatric disorders in children of mothers with polycystic ovary syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Testosterone modulation of default mode network and its effects on cognitive function and mood in humans: a systematic review.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Sex Steroid Hormone Signaling Tunes Metabolic and Neuronal Programs in Human Cortical Development.Research square · 2026Article
- Shared and disorder-specific prenatal and perinatal risk factors for neurodevelopmental disorders: a nationwide cohort study.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Steroidopathies and hormonal imbalance in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Dissecting the shared genetic architecture between testosterone traits and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- Autism and Neurodegeneration: Distinct Disorders or a Shared Biological Continuum?Brain sciences · 2026Review
- MeCP2 Governs maternal hyperandrogenism-induced cortical defects and behavioral alterations via noncanonical AR-dependent regulation of Mef2c.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The prenatal sex steroid theory of autism after 25 years.Nature human behaviour · 2026Review
- Connectome-based symptom mapping and in silico related gene expression in children with autism and/or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Sex differences in the developing human cortex intersect with genetic risk of neurodevelopmental disorders.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Maternal polycystic ovarian syndrome and offspring psychopathology and neurodevelopment.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2025Review
- Early selective attention to the articulating mouth as a potential female-specific marker of better language development in autism: a review.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Neuroactive steroids in the programming of neurodevelopment: implications of maternal obesity.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2025Review
- Mapping the white-matter functional connectome: a personal perspective.Psychoradiology · 2025Review
- Correlation Between Propulsive Velocity, Maximum Velocity, and Power and the 2D:4D Ratio in Paralympic Powerlifting Athletes.BioMed research international · 2025Article
- Connectome-based symptom mapping andmedRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
- Genetic and Environmental Factors Co-Contributing to Behavioral Abnormalities inInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Sex-biasing influence of autism-associatedScience advances · 2024Article
- Glucocorticoids and cognitive function: a walkthrough in endogenous and exogenous alterations.Journal of endocrinological investigation · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
16 authors at 7 institutions in 7 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Early-onset neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g., autism) affect males more frequently than females. Androgens may play a role in this male-bias by sex-differentially impacting early prenatal brain development, particularly neural circuits that later develop specialized roles in social cognition. Here, we find that increasing prenatal testosterone in humans is associated with later reduction of functional connectivity between social brain default mode (DMN) subsystems in adolescent males, but has no effect in females. Since testosterone can work directly via the androgen receptor (AR) or indirectly via the estrogen receptor through aromatase conversion to estradiol, we further examined how a potent non-aromatizable androgen, dihydrotestosterone (DHT), acts via the AR to influence gene expression in human neural stem cells (hNSC)-particularly for genes of high-relevance for DMN circuitry. DHT dysregulates a number of genes enriched for syndromic causes of autism and intellectual disability and for genes that in later development are expressed in anatomical patterns that highly correspond to the cortical midline DMN subsystem. DMN-related and DHT-affected genes (e.g., MEF2C) are involved in a number of synaptic processes, many of which impact excitation-inhibition balance. Androgens have male-specific prenatal influence over social brain circuitry in humans and may be relevant towards explaining some component of male-bias in early-onset neurodevelopmental conditions.
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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.