Study suggests link between high testosterone and autism -

[KPB]

Anyone read this, thought it may be of interest to some of you:-

Study suggests link between high testosterone and autism


Hormone levels in womb affect behaviour later in childhood
By Liam McDougall, Health Correspondent



A LEADING specialist has claimed autism may be linked to over-production of the male hormone testosterone.
Research by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen has shown that babies who produce high levels of the hormone in the womb are more likely to develop abnormalities in social development and other autistic traits.

Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, said his team had taken samples of amniotic fluid from the wombs of 3000 pregnant mothers to analyse for levels of testosterone.

On each baby?s first birthday, researchers videoed the child to determine social interaction with their mother, including how much eye contact they made. The research, the first of its kind to assess whether a foetus?s hormone levels could determine autism, found that babies who had produced higher levels of the male hormone were less likely to make eye contact with their parent.

Now, preliminary findings from Baron-Cohen?s latest research ? which studies how the children cope socially at school ? has again found that those with the highest levels of prenatal testosterone now face a greater challenge in forming friendships.

He said: ?We have followed these women from before birth and we?ve looked at hormones, in particular pre natal testosterone. We are trying to establish whether hormone levels can influence social relationships. That is exactly what we have been finding.

?The children are now four and so we wanted to study them when they were just starting school, which is another social challenge. We have found that prenatal testosterone predicts how easily a child can make friends in a social group. These are brand new results.?

The initial results, which will be published later this year in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, comes from a sample of 170 children. Baron-Cohen said that by the end of the year, researchers will have results for the thousands of children in the study.

He added: ?None of these children has a diagnosis of autism but it is inevitable that a number will in a group of this size. Most will not get a diagnosis until they are around five or six.

?At the moment we are writing to all the women to find out which, if any, [of the babies] have a diagnosis of autism or a related child development condition. By the end of the year we may be able to test whether a child who had elevated levels of testosterone prenatally will go on to develop autism.?

He added: ?The research has opened up a lot of new questions. It?s very exciting.?

The research, which is unique to Baron-Cohen?s team, has the potential to deal a devastating blow to critics of the MMR jab who believe the vaccine has been responsible for causing autism in children.

If successful, it could show that certain youngsters are in fact predisposed to be affected by the disorder, before they are even born.

On the back of his research, Baron-Cohen has pioneered the ?extreme male brain theory?, which he believes may be at the root of the condition. Basing his theory on animal studies showing that overproduction of testosterone leads to an overdevelopment of the right side of the brain, he says this may account for the reason that many autistic children have good spatial abilities but poor social skills.

?Males produce testosterone in the womb from the testes, but females also produce it from the adrenal gland.

?It is known from animal research that testosterone influences brain development. There is a theory that the more testosterone you produce, the quicker your right hemisphere grows, developing at the expense of the left.

?There are already clues that autism might be linked to being a male. Four males to every female will develop autism, so the sex ratio is very biased. There seems to be something about being a male that increases the risk of developing autism.?

Current figures show that autism affects more than 500,000 families in the UK, usually developing in children before the age of three. Typically, autistic children have problems communicating and relating to people.

Despite the theory, detailed at the British Psychological Society conference in London over the weekend, some parents of autistic children still believe that the MMR jab had a link to the condition.

Carol Gillespie, from Glasgow, who blames the triple jab for her seven-year-old daughter Natalie?s autism, said: ?I think it?s an interesting theory but it doesn?t fit with what we found with Natalie.

?She was a healthy baby who was developing normally but who regressed after receiving the MMR jab. Now she is non- verbal and has difficulty communicating. It was not something that happened in the womb.?

Eileen Hopkins, director of development at the National Autistic Society, said: ?It is always interesting to add new pieces to the puzzle of autism and to improve the information that we can give to people who contact us for support and advice.?




www.nas.org.uk

www.autismresearch centre.com

18 April 2004

[Clarinet60]

Interesting.

'Extreme male brain' - now there's a concept.

I think I know a few people with one of those.

[lars]

KPB very interesting!! larsxx

[twiglett]

message withdrawn

[Jimjams]

the thing that strikes me about SBC research though is that there is a HUGE difference between a child who has trouble making friends and is a bit socially inept and a child who has full blown autism. Also a HUGE difference between a late speaker - but one who develops language in the normal way- and the way an autistic child learns language. It's clear that my son is a learning langauge very autistically- he's learning it a chunks. So for example he has to learn "I want biscuit" and "I want tv" as two totally different things. There's no concept yet o f"I want". That's not just slow language development - that's off the wall (and typically autistic).

Can you tell I think SBC research in this is bollox Maybe its more relevant to AS? (who do learn language more normally).

[Jimjams]

BTW testosterone inhibits neurone maturation- which is why girls are born more "advanced" than boys. SO its not really surprising that high testosterone = delay (but not necessarily disorder).

[Davros]

I really don't like the idea that autism is just maleness magnified. In our house I am the liner upper and I suspect most women are (its called tidying!). In my experience there is a HUGE difference between someone with even the mildest ASD or Aspergers and someone who is ecentric, quirky but NT.

[dinosaur]

Davros, hate to disagree with such an august authority as yourself but I think that the SBC theory is quite applicable when I compare my DH and DS1! DH is fanatically tidy and to my non-autie mind gets quite unreasonably upset if anyone touches his carefully-organised piles of papers etc. He is the arch liner-upper, list-maker etc. It seems quite plausible to me that DS1 is basically a more extreme version of him. (There are lots more examples I could give as well as the tidiness/lining things up, but I won't bore you all.)

Whatever about SBC's research, he has written a book which I've found very helpful called "Teaching children with autism to mindread".

[Davros]

Dino, how dare you! My husband also shows some ASD traits including SPLD-type things (mixing up pronouns etc) but it seems to be in the genes of my side of the family!
I suppose I don't like the potential for headlines and stupid media coverage saying autism is just maleness and let's stereotype "male behaviour" as almost a disorder. I like SBC (I met him recently and asked him to tell me how I was feeling from the look on my face ) but even his "theory of mind" which many people take as "gospel" has its detractors, not least parents of ASD kids who do sneaky things (mine!). Its good that the research has the quantitative side and those results will emerge in time but the first stage has quite a high qualitative level, e.g. "not making friends" or being shy? iyswim. The longer term results will be interesting and more important and what are they going to do then? Measure testosterone level in the womb and change it? If the results come back to show that this theory is correct then I'd be first in line to be checked but I'll be too old

[dinosaur]

I do know what you mean about it having the potential to generate unhelpful headlines!

I'd be very interested (although I'm not expecting you to buttonhole him at the next parents' evening) to know what Nick Hornby reckons to the theory!

[aloha]

What Nick Hornby...with his lists, and his alphabeticising.... ?

[Jimjams]

when I pointed out that my son was teasing I was told he couldn't be as he has no TOM. yet he was. Actually my 2 year old teases as well- but he doesn't have tom either- or maybe I've missed the point of SBC work.

I've heard that his facial expressions CD can be dangerous in AS hands. My friend's son used it, then whenever she was sitting down minding her own business her son would come up and say something like "ahh I see you are pensive". Or she's be doing the cooking - son at her elbow " you are surprised"- when she was nothing of the sort. It drove her up the wall.

Agree with you Davros about the headline stuff. By saying that autism is like an extreme form of maleness I think it misses the difficuties. Your average male may often be strange and a bit odd, but they do not have the difficulties (or sensory problems!) that someone who is autistic has. Not remotely.

[Jimjams]

From the stuff I've read I would guess Nick Hornby is more of a vaccine damage (in some cases) type man. I think his son is fairly severe (davros?) so a bit further along the line than an extreme form of maleness. Just guessing from an article I read of his (a couple of years ago though).

[Davros]

I don't like to speak for other parents, but I think NH's son would NOT be considered ASD due to vaccine but certainly made worse and made ill by vaccine. He is the child I always think of in my biomed-cynicism when accepting that GFCF diet really does benefit and is NECESSARY for some ASD children. I can see a total difference in him when he is well and his guts are working OK, he's a different child. Sadly I do know quite a few who the diet seems to make no difference to but are still on a complicated regime that is socially restricting and limits any indpendence
Sidetracked again, sorry!

[grumpyzebra]

I wonder where this puts the theory that reckons that homosexuality may (at least in some cases) be caused by high levels of testosterone in the womb? Link1 , Link2 .