UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute lecturer to address "extreme male brain" theory of autism

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Simon Baron-Cohen, an internationally renowned autism researcher and author of several acclaimed books on autism, including "Mindblindness" and "The Essential Difference," will present a lecture on “The Androgen Theory of Autism,” on Wednesday, Dec. 9, as part of the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute Distinguished Lecturer Series.

The free lecture will be held at 4:30 p.m. in the M.I.N.D. Institute auditorium, at 2825 50th St. in Sacramento. Videos of earlier Distinguished Lecturer Series lectures are available on the Web. 

Baron-Cohen is a professor of developmental pathopsychology and director of the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, the United Kingdom. He is best known for his theories that autism involves degrees of “mindblindness” and that autism represents an extreme form of the “male brain.”

Baron-Cohen will discuss results from three lines of investigation that support the androgen theory of autism. Specifically, he will present evidence from his laboratory that one androgen, fetal testosterone, is a key factor underlying social development, and that dysregulation in the production of this hormone may play a role in autism.

Baron-Cohen is the founder of the Cambridge Longitudinal Foetal Testosterone Project, a research project aimed at studying the effects of individual differences in fetal testosterone on later child development. His studies of the subject to date have indicated that fetal testosterone is highly correlated with attention to detail and a number of autistic traits. In research published in Autism Research in 2009, Baron-Cohen’s lab identified androgen-related genes that were associated with autistic traits, empathy and Asperger Syndrome.

He has been honored by the American Psychological Association, the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the British Psychological Society, among others, for his research into autism. He is currently the vice president of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) and co-editor in chief of the new journal Molecular Autism.

He is author of "Mindblindness" (MIT Press, 1995), "The Essential Difference" (Penguin UK/Basic Books, 2003), and "Prenatal Testosterone in Mind" (MIT Press, 2005). He has edited a number of scholarly anthologies, including "Understanding Other Minds" (OUP, 1993, 2001), "The Maladapted Mind" (Erlbaum, 1997) and "Synaesthesia" (Blackwells, 1997). He has also written books for parents and teachers such as "Autism and Asperger Syndrome: The Facts" (OUP, 2008), and "Teaching Children with Autism to Mind Read" (Wiley, 1998). He is author of the DVD-ROM "Mind Reading: An Interactive Guide to Emotions" (Jessica Kingsley Ltd, 2003) and "The Transporters"(www.thetransporters.com, 2007), an animation for preschool children with autism to help them learn emotion recognition.

Admission to all Distinguished Lecturer Series presentations is free and open to the public, with no reservations required. The M.I.N.D. Institute Resource Center will be open to the public one hour before and 30 minutes after each presentation. For further information about the Distinguished Lecturer Series, please visit the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute Web site at http://www.mindinstitute.org, or contact Laura Lacy, at (916) 703-0254.

The UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, in Sacramento, Calif., was founded in 1998 as a unique interdisciplinary research center where parents, community leaders, researchers, clinicians and volunteers work together toward a common goal: researching causes, treatments and eventual preventions and cures for neurodevelopmental disorders. In addition to autism, the M.I.N.D. Institute has major research efforts in fragile X syndrome, Tourette syndrome, chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome and ADHD. More information about the institute is available on the Web at http://www.mindinstitute.org.