LEVELS of testosterone in the womb may have profound effects on a person’s social development. The findings might also explain why men are four times as likely as women to suffer from autism.
The study is the latest in a series on a group of 58 children born in 1996 and 1997. Simon Baron-Cohen’s team at the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge, UK, measured testosterone levels in the amniotic fluid of the babies’ mothers while pregnant. This is presumed to reflect levels in the babies themselves.
The team has already found that the babies with higher fetal testosterone levels had…
