Do different genes cause autism in boys and in girls?
July 31, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
According to a study published today in the online edition of Molecular Genetics, different genes may cause autism in boys and girls. (A summary of the research can be read at Eurekalert.org.) The head of the research team, Gerard Schellenberg, a researcher at the Puget Sound Veterans Affairs Medical Center and a research professor of medicine at the University of Washington, notes that the study provides new evidence to suggest that multiple genes cause autism, and also that different genes may play a role in early-onset autism and in the “recently verified regression.”
“It is highly unlikely that there is only one gene responsible for autism,” said Schellenberg. “There may be four to six major genes and 20 to 30 others that might contribute to autism to a lesser degree.
“If an individual only gets three high-risk variants of these genes, it could mean a less-severe form of autism. And because autism is rarer in females, it may take more risk genes for a female to have autism. There also is the possibility that there might be a biological difference in autism for females versus males,” he said.
Go here to read a summary of this study, Different genes may cause autism in boys and girls.
Of course, there’s also the possibility that there isn’t really a gender difference in the indicence of autism, just in the diagnosis of it. I strongly suspect the same of ADHD.
I concur with Janna.
Too often the diagnosticians simply don’t know what they are looking at.
So the research needs to rethought from the starting point.