Intrinsic excitation-inhibition imbalance affects medial prefrontal cortex differently in autistic men versus women.

Excitation-inhibition (E:I) imbalance is theorized as an important pathophysiological mechanism in autism. Autism affects males more frequently than females and sex-related mechanisms (e.g.

Neural self-representation in autistic women and association with 'compensatory camouflaging'.

Prior work has revealed sex/gender-dependent autistic characteristics across behavioural and neural/biological domains. It remains unclear whether and how neural sex/gender differences are related to behavioural sex/gender differences in autism. Here, we examined whether atypical neural responses during mentalizing and self-representation are sex/gender-dependent in autistic adults and explored whether 'camouflaging' (acting as if behaviourally neurotypical) is associated with sex/gender-dependent neural responses.

Quantifying and exploring camouflaging in men and women with autism.

Autobiographical descriptions and clinician observations suggest that some individuals with autism, particularly females, 'camouflage' their social communication difficulties, which may require considerable cognitive effort and lead to increased stress, anxiety and depression. Using data from 60 age- and IQ-matched men and women with autism (without intellectual disability), we operationalized camouflaging in adults with autism for the first time as the quantitative discrepancy between the person's 'external' behavioural presentation in social-interpersonal contexts (measured by the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule) and the person's 'internal' status (dispositional traits measured by the Autism Spectrum Quotient and social cognitive capability measured by the 'Reading the Mind in the Eyes' Test). We found that the operationalized camouflaging measure was not significantly correlated with age or IQ.