In one of my studies, we first sought as many participants with ASD as we could. Then, we searched our EMR for 3 or more age, gender, and race/ethnicity-matched controls and recruited them. We ended up with 31 cases and 3 matched controls for each case, in order to have better power.

Thank you very much Kelly, I hope I can have a look at your work. I am more interested with the ready data, cause I have no lab and my university doesn't have any support to run this kind of programs, while during COVID, any examination may be limited and there will be still enhanced risk, and I believe that COVID may be especially dangerous for individuals with amended enterocytes coat, so none will even give me permission for that :( but I am sure that your studies will be very helpful in creating a hypothetical design and I am very thankful that you found time to comment on my request!

Hi Agata Zborowska ,

Interesting point! There are quite remarkable findings regarding the role of the alteration of gut microbiota in emergence or changes of severity of autism-related symptoms in children.

Please check the following papers to find more info and to see the detailed methodology in each of these studies:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632231632724X

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452216002360

https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn3346

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6539237/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6471505/

https://gutpathogens.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13099-020-0346-1

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3271/6/2/29

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X13004532