Critical appraisal of the cognitive, behavioural and strucutural neuroimaging evidence for The Extreme Male Theory of Austism.
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is more prevalent in boys than in girls around the world, at a ratio of approximately 4:1. Some theories propose to explain this difference in prevalence, the main one being the Extreme Male Brain Theory. However, recent evidence suggests that aspects of the disease have been neglected in women, suggesting that many carriers go undiagnosed. In addition, evidence regarding the existence of gender differences in ASD symptoms has emerged in recent years. Given this controversy in the literature and the increasing use of neuroimaging evidence to test hypotheses regarding the etiology of mental disorders, we propose in this project: (1) a critical conceptual analysis of the assumptions of the Extreme Male Brain Theory (2) to conduct a systematic review of the cognitive, behavioural and neuroimaging evidence that supports or challenges this theory and (3) analyses of open structural neuroimaging databases, including graph theory tools, suitable for testing the hypotheses of the influence of sex differences on the morphology and architecture of neural networks in the manifestations of ASD.