Dr. Sergiu Pașcă

And, you know, some discussions are just in terms of diagnosis that perhaps some of the girls are not getting diagnosed properly.

We do know that some of them are very good at what we call like masking the symptoms or sort of like, you know, learning the skills, social skills and sort of like covering for that diagnosis.

But what we do know for sure is...

is that there are differences in how the male and the female brain, especially around birth, can actually take up injury.

So think, for instance, about premature birth.

You know, one of the best predictors for a premature baby in terms of outcomes, it's actually to be a female.

Just in general, females' preemies will do much better for whatever reasons.

The way the nervous system is built, the resilience.

We know that the maturation stage is also different for the male and the female.

Think about acquisition of certain milestones that happen much faster in girls.

They generally tend to speak a few months earlier, to walk a few months earlier.

So just the nervous system.

It's maturing at a different pace and can take injury differently.

So it could be that that is certainly the cause.

But at the same time, and as we were talking, since autism is not one single disease, it is very hard to point out to one specific factor that is behind it.

It's not part of the diagnostic criteria.

Interesting.

But it is one of the features that has been observed.

Of course, it also has to do with just in general, like joint attention is one of the earlier.

So, you know,