The Effects of Gender in Neurological Disorders: A Special Focus on Autism Spectrum Disorders and Thiomersal Toxicity

Abstract

Estrogen and testosterone serve as the main sex hormones in humans. In addition, they have many different functions in terms of metabolic, and body defense. Gender differences lead to various social, economic, physiological, and pathological outcomes. Gender differences may also cause different toxicokinetics for metalslike mercury.Mercury exposure is suggested to cause neurological disorders. Thiomersal which is one of the most widely used preservatives particularly in vaccines, consists of approximately 50% mercury by weight. Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have been associated with thiomersal exposure from vaccines in the last decades. Recent studies show that the incidence of ASD is higher in boys compared to girls. However, studies and discussions continue in this area. It is thought that this situation may be related to the difference in the toxicokinetics of mercury in different genders. There are concerns that ASD in girls may have a distinct phenotype than boys. The studies are now focused on whether there is an overlook due to the difficulty of diagnosing in females or it is more common in males due to physiological and hormonal reasons or not. In this review, we evaluated the frequency of ASD in different genders, the association between thiomersal and ASD and whether thiomersal exposure from vaccines could be an underlying factor of ASD in boys or not.