Podcast: To see differences in the brains of males and females with autism, you have to look at the brains of males and females with autism

Podcast Logo_02272017Last month, UC Davis researcher Dr. Cyndi Schumann used resources from the Autism BrainNet to look at what causes differences in the rates of diagnosis between males and females. Consistent with other studies on this topic, males and females do not show differences in the rates of autism genes, but rather in the way that the brain controls other genes that code for things like neuroinflammation and development. Clearly more studies are necessary but it is consistent with the “female protective effect” in autism. The full text can be found here.

And also, there was a study on genital herpes and autism that CNN got totally wrong.

Click here to listen to this week’s podcast with Dr. Alycia Halladay.