Attended a talk by Simon Baron-Cohen

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He presented his research on the relationship between fetal testosterone levels and autistic traits. As part of this research he measured testosterone levels from the amniotic fluid of several hundred 3 month old fetuses. Then he tested those children for 'autistic traits' 24 hours after they were born, as toddlers and again at 8 years old. Some of the traits he looked at were attention to detail (using an embedded figure test), empathizing and systemizing (don't remember how he tested that) and language development. He found a positive correlation between elevated testosterone levels and increased autistic traits. The correleation was not strong but it was statistically significant.

I found this interesting and would like to see this research continue in two directions:
1. Look at the correlation between fetal testosterone levels and incidence of autism. Obviously this would require an enormous sample size since only a small fraction of individuals in the sample pool will actually turn out to be autistic.
2. Try and understand what causes elevated testosterone levels in the fetus. Can this be affected by the mother's environment or diet?

By the way, Simon Baron-Cohen is the first cousin of Sacha Baron-Cohen (Borat). He has the same lanky build but is more fair.

I was always wondering if the two Baron-Cohens were related. Both so talented!

Also interesting... I heard that high levels of testosterone also cause very high levels of near-sighted ness (and I am very near sighted). Just a curiosity.

I also agree with recent research which shows results suggesting current hormone abnormalities in women with AS and their mothers. My mother had a huge hormone in balance, and mine are not always my best friend!

Direct investigations of serum testosterone levels, and genetic susceptibility to high testosterone production or sensitivity in women with AS would illuminate the origin of these conditions, research on going, view current research:http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/research/hormones.asp

Since you brought this discussion up, let me reply by posting my own theory concerning testosterone, fetus development, autism, mothers, and ... fathers!! !

You see, since women are the ones that get pregnant, are mostly the ones that carry the responsibility meaning that the connection that comes immediately to mind when testosterone and fetus are mentioned is: What did the mother do to cause this, or how is the mother involved in this. This is obviously the first connection that springs to mind since it is obviously the mother that carries the fetus to gestation. But...

Lets say that this issue with high testosterone and fetus development is something like who came first the chicken or the egg.

So let's take a step back and take a look one generation before the current fetus, when the mother was herself a fetus, a child, a teenager and an adolescent.

Could it be that the mother as a fetus inherited this high testosterone condition from her mother? Or is it something that has its roots in the later life and development of the mother as a young girl? Could it be that it might be both?

My hypothesis believes that it is both. There was a predisposition and her life added to the already existing basis to cause a rise in the testosterone levels.

Let's assume that the mother as a fetus inside her mother encountered a high-level testosterone situation, and this female fetus was born as an autistic female.
It is known that only 1 in 5 chikldren with autism are females. And in the 1980s this number was even higher, 1 in 8 were females. Scientists assumed that women are less affected by autism. Today after extensive research they begin to realize that women are just as often affected by autism, but the way the female version of autism manifests is so different than the more 'common' male version that many female autistics go through life undiagnosed, untreated, and unhelped.

Being autistic is a constant struggle, being a female autistic is an extra struggle because as a female society expects you to be empathic, to be loving, to be caring, to offer warmth and compassion. All of these expectation contradict the facts we know about about autism.

Women autistics that were largely undiagnosed, went through life living in constant stress because they were expected to be and do something that was impossible for them: be empathic and show emotions.

These women experiences situations that caused them to live in fear (abusive husbands), confrontations with the world that does not accept women that behave in a mascular way and who are dynamic, ambitious and not submissive but will speak their mind.

I am sure that many generations of women lived in conditions that caused their bodies to react to the fear and stress they encountered by doing what a human body does naturally: create hormones like adrenaline and testosterone.

Now imagine that this woman is pregnant, her body keeps producing high levels of testosterone that are released in the blood-stream and also reach the placenta. Her blood is the same blood that 'feeds' the embryo and then fetus inside her body. Since the fetus is not yet fully developed but are still developing, the body of the fetus does not have the blood-brain barrier.

This means that the hormones that the mother's body is producing, affect the formation of the organs and of the fetus brain. We know from existing research that hight testosterone also affects the size of the amygdala in the brain, the emotion center.

This means that if the fetus is a female, it will also have a big chance statistically to be autistic. But again, she will not be diagnosed like her mother was not. But this female now lives in society that is slowly more accepting of women and she is able to even get a job. This is fine, but it does not mean that she is not again faced with situations that test her becaus eof her autism. She might be as dynamic and ambitious as men, but she
will not get promoted as easily as they do, will not get the same pay for the same job, will still be expected to be empathic and nurturing. Stress and more stress.

But the problem is not a line that goes from women to women only. Men have a role here, too. Their role has to do with psychology and emotions. Funny huh?

It is known that a child learns how to love from his/her encounters with the opposite sex. This means that men learn how to love from their contact with their mothers and women learn how to love from their conatct with their fathers.

For many centuries, especially in the western society the upbringing of the children was the mother's responsibility. The fathers, did not get involved in this upbringing and if and when they did, they would spend far more time with their sons than with their daughters. This meand that millions and millions of women were emotionally starved because they had either no close and warm relationship with their fathers, or they were ingoned by these fathers, or in the worst case they were abused by their fathers.

These women, inspite of their predisposition to empathy and female nurturing natuure, they never truly learned how to love!! !

If we add to this situation another factor that is autism, and imagine that the father was autistic (as have been many fathers when autism was yet to be discovered) then the father was almost just a picture on the wall as he was never involved with the children always in his office doing his stuff, obsession and interests, leaving the mother to care for the kids. Probably the only time the father was present was during his meltdowns when his angry voice was heard and his frustration and anger took an outing on his wife by abusing her!! ! The result was a woman that was emotionally starved and had a wrong image of what a man is: a distant and violent person.

When this woman was to choose a husband she would probably choose one that did not bare any similarity to her father: a soft, love-shy man, who was withdrawn and sensitive, who wrote her poems and sang to her. Little did this woman know that this man she saw as soft and harmless, was the same as her own father an autistic with meltdowns that would surface only after she was married with him, and he felt familiar enough to out his meltdowns in her presence or repeat the pattern of abuse that she had witnessed from her father. As a result, these women again lived in a state of stress and fear that elevated their adrenaline and testosterone levels.

As society progressed and women became more independent, the patterns remained still the same. More women got divorced after their autistic hausband took off, or after they left him not putting up with the abuse. The stress and fear remained the same too as they now had to be a single parent that had to deal with society who did not recognize their own autism and also face a new challenge: their diagnosed autistic kids and the early stigma this diagnosis brought with it.

The autistic women have been carrying the cross of autism for far too long. They have taken the blame, the responsibility, the beatings, the abuse, the stress and the fear.

Yet, they survived because they were strong, dynamic, determined, ambitious, true lionesses ready to fight for themselves and their kids. They had strength, the kind of strength that ... yes, elevated levels of testosterone can give.

Now the circle is round and Barron-Cohen placed testosterone on the map, and came up with the extreme male brain theory, but again, women were left out of the picture, unless they were to have the fingers pointed to them accussing them that there must have been something THEY did to have such high levels of a male hormone...

You probably wonder why scientists have not yet come up with this hypothesis... don't worry they will one day. As a true autistic I have pieced things together fefore the scientists did, and since as I am not a holder of a PhD, a MSc, or any other 3-letter title, I will not be taken seriously until some scientists 'discovers' what I already know.

Neurotypical world... you gotta love it!

Star

Gee, I work with a woman that looks like a young boy, as far as the upper lip. She doesn't seem autistic though. a worker at the hotel has such a full mustache that I couldn't believe it. Her voice, and general demeaner are FEMALE, but the mustache IS quite full. SHE doesn't strike me as autistic either though.

Have they ALSO checked babies that had LOW testosterone?

http://aq.server8.org/

Did Dr. Baron Cohen comment on sexual orientation and gender orientation in relation to autism? It seems that a high proportion of autistics and Aspies are androgynous and ambivalent about orientation. My husband is very effeminate, my son is down right prissy (and at 8 wants to be a girl) and I'm fairly androgynous too.

The extreme male brain theory of autism

It happily explains the 4:1 ratio of males to females (personally, I think that the 4:1 for autism easily transposes accurately over the 4:1 for Asperger's as they're both the same thing, with the only difference being the severity of verbal impairment).

Disappointed w/ B-C's book ("The Essential Difference"). I'd recommend shorter (non-AS related) book that covers similar ground less dogmatically: "The Sexual Brain" by Simon LeVay. Not about sex in terms of activity, but the biochemistry of gender selection/identification/formation in the developing brain-despite fact that book has sensual image on cover-blame the marketers/publishers.
Anyway, it came out in the late 90's, but doesn't seem "dated". Readers are left to draw their own conclusions. Some parts are bit above my biology comprehension level, but it did come back down to level I could get my brain around. Author got famous for paper on differences between structure or chemistry in brains of homosexual males, but that's unfairly simplistic. His outlook makes sense & his p.o.v. seems congruent w/my worldview (I'm a liberal).
Book not reducable to "prenatal basis for sexual orientation" or "all about testosterone"-it's a succinct text with broad application.

Knaidle, very interesting. We have one of his books, but it's not on hormones. I've suspected hormones play a role in Autism, though have no definitive opinion on it yet. You can't help but notice that in all of these Autism programs and therapies you rarely (if ever) see a girl.

I'm going to do more research on Simon Baron-Cohen. Good thread.

If autism is getting more common, and Simon Baron-Cohen is right about testosterone, I hypothesis that androgenic chemical pollution (chemicals that affects sex hormones) maybe altering the hormone balance in vulnerable unborn infants - causing autism. Estrogenic compounds is said to be responsible for falling sperm counts and increased intersex conditions - in some polluted river all the fish are female.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... .pollution

I read along time ago that difference between a male and female human is 100 parts per billion in testosterone. Thus, this subtle hormonal balance could be upset by androgenic chemical pollution, causing increased testosterone levels = more autism.

Simon Baron-Cohen thinks that Nerds are marrying Nerds is = more autism (universities companies with more women these days and careers that award systemising intelligence). He calls this associative mating.

And then there are those of us who identify as genderqueer . . .