- Elevated fetal steroidogenic activity in autism.
Elevated fetal steroidogenic activity in autism.
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,ย 10thย Revision) diagnoses of autism, Asperger syndromeย orย PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified) (n=128) compared withย matched typically developing controls. Concentration levels of ฮ4 sex steroids (progesterone, 17ฮฑ-hydroxy-progesterone, androstenedioneย and testosterone) and cortisol were measured with liquid chromatography tandemย mass spectrometry. All hormones were positively associated with each other and principal componentย 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.