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Gender Development Research Centre

 

Professor Melissa Hines and visiting scholar Professor Marcia Collaer have published a meta-analysis in the Archives of Sexual Behavior entitled 'No evidence for elevated prenatal androgen exposure in congenital adrenal hyperplasia: a meta-analysis' in which the potential influence of prenatal androgen exposure on spatial skills is explored by examining studies of patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). It was hypothesized that, if androgens contribute prenatally to neurobehavioural development in humans, as in many other species, females with CAH would show spatial enhancement versus control males; there was no definitive hypothesis for males. Meta-analysis of 12 studies examining overall spatial skill and three spatial subcategories failed to support enhanced spatial performance for females with CAH; males with CAH showed lower spatial ability compared to control males, at least for the category of overall spatial skill.

The full article can be accessed here.