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Elevated fetal steroidogenic activity in autism
- Source :
- Molecular psychiatry, Mol.Psychiatry, Baron-Cohen, S, Auyeung, B, Nørgaard-Pedersen, B, Hougaard, D M, Abdallah, M W, Melgaard, L, Cohen, A S, Chakrabarti, B, Ruta, L & Lombardo, M V 2015, ' Elevated fetal steroidogenic activity in autism ', Molecular Psychiatry, vol. 20, pp. 376-369 . https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2014.48, Molecular Psychiatry
- Publication Year :
- 2014
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2014.
-
Abstract
- Autism affects males more than females, giving rise to the idea that the influence of steroid hormones on early fetal brain development may be one important early biological risk factor. Utilizing the Danish Historic Birth Cohort and Danish Psychiatric Central Register, we identified all amniotic fluid samples of males born between 1993 and 1999 who later received ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision) diagnoses of autism, Asperger syndrome or PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified) (n=128) compared with matched typically developing controls. Concentration levels of Δ4 sex steroids (progesterone, 17α-hydroxy-progesterone, androstenedione and testosterone) and cortisol were measured with liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. All hormones were positively associated with each other and principal component analysis confirmed that one generalized latent steroidogenic factor was driving much of the variation in the data. The autism group showed elevations across all hormones on this latent generalized steroidogenic factor (Cohen's d=0.37, P=0.0009) and this elevation was uniform across ICD-10 diagnostic label. These results provide the first direct evidence of elevated fetal steroidogenic activity in autism. Such elevations may be important as epigenetic fetal programming mechanisms and may interact with other important pathophysiological factors in autism. © 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. 20 3 369 376 Cited By :73; Export Date: 17 July 2017
- Subjects :
- Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Hydrocortisone
Denmark
Gestational Age
Cohort Studies
03 medical and health sciences
Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Fetus
0302 clinical medicine
Tandem Mass Spectrometry
Internal medicine
medicine
Humans
Asperger Syndrome
Autistic Disorder
Molecular Biology
Testosterone
030304 developmental biology
Pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified
Analysis of Variance
Principal Component Analysis
0303 health sciences
Case-control study
medicine.disease
3. Good health
Psychiatry and Mental health
Endocrinology
Asperger syndrome
Case-Control Studies
Autism
Female
Steroids
Original Article
Psychology
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Chromatography, Liquid
medicine.drug
Hormone
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14765578 and 13594184
- Volume :
- 20
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Molecular Psychiatry
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....8bad563629411e274c642d794626a4cf
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2014.48