ArticleCerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)2019
Sex Differences Along the Autism Continuum: A Twin Study of Brain Structure.
Article in Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Brain-based sex differences in autism spectrum disorder across the lifespan: A systematic review of structural MRI, fMRI, and DTI findings.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2021Pooled it
- Autistic Trait Level and Reaction Time in Older Adults: The Influence of Sex and Task upon Study Outcome.Autism in adulthood · 2026Article
- Does Camouflaging Cause Reduced Quality of Life? A Co-Twin Control Study.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- Sex Similarities and Differences in Brain Dynamic Functional Connectivity Among Individuals With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorders.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Characterizing replicability in the clustering structure of brain morphology in autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Nutritional management and autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review.World journal of clinical pediatrics · 2024Article
- Differences in regional brain structure in toddlers with autism are related to future language outcomes.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Syndrome-Specific Neuroanatomical Phenotypes in Girls With Turner and Noonan Syndromes.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2024Article
- Whole-brain gray matter maturation trajectories associated with autistic traits from adolescence to early adulthood.Brain structure & function · 2024Article
- Reduced brain connectivity along the autism spectrum controlled for familial confounding by co-twin design.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Sex-Related Changes in the Clinical, Genetic, Electrophysiological, Connectivity, and Molecular Presentations of ASD: A Comparison between Human and Animal Models of ASD with Reference to Our Data.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Adolescent female valproic acid rats have impaired extra-dimensional shifts of attention and enlarged anterior cingulate cortices.Brain research · 2023Article
- Investigating heterogeneity across autism, ADHD, and typical development using measures of cortical thickness, surface area, cortical/subcortical volume, and structural covariance.Frontiers in child and adolescent psychiatry · 2023Article
- Structural neuroimaging phenotypes and associated molecular and genomic underpinnings in autism: a review.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Review
- Altered Periodic Dynamics in the Default Mode Network in Autism and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.Biological psychiatry · 2022Article
- Impact of autism genetic risk on brain connectivity: a mechanism for the female protective effect.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2022Article
- Autism spectrum disorders pathogenesis: Toward a comprehensive model based on neuroanatomic and neurodevelopment considerations.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Article
- Stem Cell Therapies for Cerebral Palsy and Autism Spectrum Disorder-A Systematic Review.Brain sciences · 2021Review
- Alteration of the Early Development Environment by Maternal Diet and the Occurrence of Autistic-like Phenotypes in Rat Offspring.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Behavioral and biological divergence in monozygotic twin pairs discordant for autism phenotypes: A systematic review.JCPP advances · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Females might possess protective mechanisms regarding autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and require a higher detrimental load, including structural brain alterations, before developing clinically relevant levels of autistic traits. This study examines sex differences in structural brain morphology in autism and autistic traits using a within-twin pair approach. Twin design inherently controls for shared confounders and enables the study of gene-independent neuroanatomical variation. N = 148 twins (62 females) from 49 monozygotic and 25 dizygotic same-sex pairs were included. Participants were distributed along the whole continuum of autism including twin pairs discordant and concordant for clinical ASD. Regional brain volume, surface area, and cortical thickness were computed. Within-twin pair increases in autistic traits were related to decreases in cortical volume and surface area of temporal and frontal regions specifically in female twin pairs, in particular regions involved in social communication, while only two regions were associated with autistic traits in males. The same pattern was detected in the monozygotic twin pairs only. Thus, non-shared environmental factors seem to impact female more than male cerebral architecture associated with autistic traits. Our results are in line with the hypothesis of a female protective effect in autism and highlights the need to study ASD in females separately from males.
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.