Extreme male brain theory

The Extreme Male Brain theory, in fact, argues that prenatal testosterone exposure is a strong candidate for contributing to sexual dimorphism in human behaviour, including social development, and may represent a risk factor for conditions characterized by social impairments, particularly autism spectrum conditions (reviewed in Knickmeyer and Baron-Cohen, 2006). 

Baron-Cohen S (2002). The Extreme Male Brain Theory of Autism. Trends Cogn Sci 6 248-254. 

The existence of a sex bias in ASD, with a male to female sex ratio of 3 1 for autism (Lord and Schopler, 1987) and 8-9 1 for AS (Wing, 1981), as well as some characteristics of cognitive functioning and emotion perception in this condition have led some researchers to link autism to maleness . A very intriguing theory developed by Baron-Cohen et al. considers autism as an extreme form of male brain (Baron-Cohen and Hammer, 1997 Baron-Cohen, 2002, 2003). According to the Extreme Male Brain (EMB) Theory, in fact, autistic individuals show an extreme pattern of the typical male brain functions. 

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See also in sourсe #XX -- [ , ]

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