Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is four times more common in boys than in girls. That trend has led some researchers to subscribe to the “extreme male theory” – that the brain of a person with the disorder is essentially an extreme version of male brain in terms of its structure and function.

What’s new: On August 27, 2015, the journal PLoS ONE published a study exploring sex differences when it comes to interpreting facial expressions. The researchers administered an existing online test – called “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” – to a total of 715 adults at an average age of 39. The scores of 152 men and 168 women with typical development followed the previously established trend: women scored better at the task of choosing the correct emotion to match a given facial expression. However, the scores of the 178 men and 217 women with ASD were nearly identical – and much lower across the board than those of their typically developing peers.

Why it’s important: While the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” test has been used in hundreds of studies since its development in 1997, this is the largest study to administer the test to people with ASD. Future studies could reveal more about the underlying causes of ASD by delving deeper into the sex-common and sex-specific features of ASD.

Brain Biology

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