Gender, Genetic, And Environmental Factors In The Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Abstract

There is a clear sex effect of gestational stress exposition. Girls have more IUGR, but boys are less resilient than girls presenting higher birth mortality. Animal studies results provide insight into the temporal specificity of the effects of prenatal chronic variable stress (CVS) revealing a remarkable vulnerability during early development and a sexually dichotomous influence on cognitive abilities and stress-coping strategies. Males exposed to early gestational stress showed significantly impaired learning performance. Also it is clear that some neurodevelopmental disorders are more prevalent in boys than girls. Using a bioinformatics approach, we will present that SRY/SOX3 autosome target genes were enriched for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and brain development gene modules expressed around the 8-10 gestational week or after the 20 gestational weeks, modules already associated to ASD. We suggest that the SRY/SOX3 mechanism can contribute to better understand the male vulnerability to early stress in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as a model of neurodevelopmental disorder with a male bias.