SynthesisNeuroImage. Clinical2021
Sex/gender differences in the human autistic brains: A systematic review of 20 years of neuroimaging research.
Synthesis in NeuroImage. Clinical, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 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
26 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Treatment Response of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in Intellectually Capable Youth and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Neuropsychology review · 2023Pooled it
- Are There Sex or Gender Differences in Autistic Characteristics? An Umbrella Systematic Review.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- The Conceptualization, Experience, and Recognition of Emotion in Autism: Differences in the Psychological Mechanisms Involved in Autistic and Non-Autistic Emotion Recognition.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2026Article
- Synaptic mechanisms for differential severity of social preference deficits in male and female mice induced by diminished activity-dependent BDNF.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Sex Similarities and Differences in Brain Dynamic Functional Connectivity Among Individuals With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorders.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Sex Differences in the Striatal Contributions to Longitudinal Fine Motor Development in Autistic Children.Biological psychiatry · 2025Article
- Borderline Personality as a Factor in Late, Missed, and Mis-Diagnosis in Autistic Girls and Women: A Conceptual Analysis.Autism in adulthood · 2024Article
- Gender, assigned sex at birth, and gender diversity: Windows into diagnostic timing disparities in autism.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2024Article
- Task-based functional neural correlates of social cognition across autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders.Molecular autism · 2024Article
- Dataset factors associated with age-related changes in brain structure and function in neurodevelopmental conditions.Human brain mapping · 2024Article
- Differently different?: A commentary on the emerging social cognitive neuroscience of female autism.Biology of sex differences · 2024Review
- In vivo translocator protein in females with autism spectrum disorder: a pilot study.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Article
- Article
- Brain-charting autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder reveals distinct and overlapping neurobiology.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2023Article
- Investigating Sex-Based Neural Differences in Autism and Their Extended Reality Intervention Implications.Brain sciences · 2023Review
- EEG functional connectivity in infants at elevated familial likelihood for autism spectrum disorder.Molecular autism · 2023Article
- Mining multi-center heterogeneous medical data with distributed synthetic learning.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Behavioral gender differences across Pre-School Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: a cross-sectional study.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2023Article
- National screening for Egyptian children aged 1 year up to 12 years at high risk of Autism and its determinants: a step for determining what ASD surveillance needs.BMC psychiatry · 2023Article
- Sex and gender in neurodevelopmental conditions.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Our current understanding of autism is largely based on clinical experiences and research involving male individuals given the male-predominance in prevalence and the under-inclusion of female individuals due to small samples, co-occurring conditions, or simply being missed for diagnosis. There is a significantly biased 'male lens' in this field with autistic females insufficiently understood. We therefore conducted a systematic review to examine how sex and gender modulate brain structure and function in autistic individuals. Findings from the past 20 years are yet to converge on specific brain regions/networks with consistent sex/gender-modulating effects. Despite at least three well-powered studies identifying specific patterns of significant sex/gender-modulation of autism-control differences, many other studies are likely underpowered, suggesting a critical need for future investigation into sex/gender-based heterogeneity with better-powered designs. Future research should also formally investigate the effects of gender, beyond biological sex, which is mostly absent in the current literature. Understanding the roles of sex and gender in the development of autism is an imperative step to extend beyond the 'male lens' in this field.
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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.