Autism is a neurobiological developmental disorder that affects 1 in 115 children in Mexico, according to the World Health Organization. Growing up, some of them suffer from a lack of understanding about their disorder, but what is autism?
WHAT IS AUTISM?
Autism cannot be detected until 18 months of age when the first symptoms begin to appear and it is until approximately 3 years of age that a specific diagnosis can be made.
Autism fundamentally has two symptoms which are: constant deficiency in communication as well as in social interaction and restrictive and repetitive patterns of behavior, interests or activities. In other words, this disorder affects the way a person behaves, interacts with others, communicates, and learns.
Autism is considered a spectrum disorder because people with it have a wide variety of different symptoms and the causes that cause it are unknown but in recent years the hypothesis that prenatal testosterone level has been increased It can be a factor for the development of the disorder.
TESTOSTERONE AND AUTISM
On the other hand, and broadly speaking, prenatal testosterone is the hormone responsible for virilization of the male fetus during pregnancy. From the first trimester of pregnancy, the undifferentiated gonads of a male fetus become testes capable of manufacturing testosterone. This testosterone is responsible for the masculinization of the internal genitalia (seminal vesicles, epididymis, vas deferens) and the external genitalia (scrotum, penis). In addition, testosterone in the fetal period causes the testicles to descend from the abdominal cavity where they are initially found towards the scrotum.
However, Simon Baron-Cohen, a psychologist and researcher at Cambridge, shares that “we have found a relationship between sex and autism. This is because autism occurs more frequently in children and I felt the need to know the reason for this and that is how I found that prenatal testosterone could be one of the causes, ”he explains in an interview with DW.
Children who developed autism spectrum disorder may have been exposed to elevated levels of steroid hormones in the amniotic fluid during pregnancy. According to the study published in Molecular Psychiatry, the fact that the fetus has been exposed to high amounts of these hormones in the womb could be the explanation why autism is much more common in men than in women.
According to a study carried out, the fact that the male hormone plays a very important role in the complex brain disorder is suggested since the children exposed to high levels of testosterone in the womb were the children who showed more symptoms related to autism. in later stages of his life.
On the other hand, the Genetics and Behavioral Disorders group of the Maimonides Institute for Biomedical Research (IMIBIC) and the University of Córdoba have dedicated themselves to analyzing the effects of testosterone on the behavior of the Caenorhabditis elegans worm. But what does this have to do with it?
This study is of great interest due to the existence of previous studies that establish a direct relationship between exposure to high levels of testosterone during prenatal development and the risk of developing autistic behavioral traits.
These results support the hypothesis that high levels of testosterone can contribute to the condition of autism spectrum disorder and also reinforce the conclusions from animal tests, said one of the study’s authors, Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge.
WHAT THE STUDY REVEALED
In the Baron-Cohen study, researchers measured fetal testosterone levels in pregnant women who had had amniotic fluid samples removed for other reasons. Subsequently, when the children were eight years old, questionnaires prepared by the experts were applied to see if they preferred social or individual activities and how empathetic they were, which allowed them to measure the traits that, extremely, are indicative of autism.
Within this study, children with higher levels of fetal testosterone had better recall patterns, however, they were not interested in socializing. Another important fact that has been taken as an indicator and has contributed to think that testosterone can play an important role in the genesis of autism is that for every girl who suffers from any of these pathologies, there are four boys.
Baron-Cohen and colleagues analyzed some of the participants’ behaviors, which were still too small to present the tests during the early stages of development. It was in this way that the experts could observe the visual contact they had with their mothers as well as their vocabulary. Male babies with higher testosterone levels used to look less at their mothers, their vocabulary was less supplied at one and a half years of age, and at four they were less sociable and less interested in the world around them.
The results of this research, published in the British Journal of Psychology, indicate that the higher the level of testosterone in the yolk sac, the greater the probability that the fetus will later have autistic features, such as deficits in sociability and verbal skills or lack of empathy.
In this way, Baron-Cohem concluded that his hypothesis appeared to be true: the brain of people with autism is “masculinized”. Male hormones influence fetal development when suffering from autism. That reason would also explain that of the number of people with autism, 80% are men.
WHAT IS AUTISM AND HOW IS IT RELATED TO TESTOSTERONE?
Experts agree that autism, a set of different disorders, is probably due to various environmental factors that affect the child with a genetic predisposition and of course testosterone in the womb could be one of these factors. However, they themselves point out that this discovery may generate great controversy, since the fact that future parents may know that their baby will have the disorder, could lead to an increase in the number of abortions.
In reality, there should be no controversy since parents are the ones who should and have the right to decide and be the only ones responsible for one or the other decision, while specialists do have the obligation to communicate the situation.
However, there are other researchers who differ from the Baron-Cohem hypothesis, such as Manuel Posada, a researcher at the Carlos III Health Institute, who says: “Testosterone could be an effect of something that correlates with the scores but the real cause would be what makes testosterone high. “
However research into the relationship of testosterone to autism is still in its infancy even geneticists recently confirmed a connection. But the question of to what extent testosterone defines the embryonic brain as male or female has yet to be resolved.