Why not have them later? Paternal age and its link to autism
A plathora of research shows that as people get older, they tend to accumulate certain mutations, and some of these mutations (<5%), in addition to other factors, lead to neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders — especially autism and schizophrenia — in the descendants of these individuals (mostly fathers). However, what we do not know is “the how”! How might these mutations lead to psychiatric or developmental disorders? Well, this is what we sought out in our paper titled “Paternal age contribution to brain white matter aberrations in autism spectrum disorder”.
We found out that the ages of older fathers highly correlates with the brain white matter of individuals who are typically developing and those with autism. In addition, we saw that these affected white matter tracts are found in regions responsible for social interaction. Finally, based on diffusion tensor imaging findings, we think that it is dysmyelination, and not axonal damage, that is responsible for these aberrations.
Of note, we did not see a correlation between the paternal age and the two groups separately. This could indicate that advanced paternal age contributes to the brain white matter aberrations, however, this contribution is not specific for ASD, but based on the regions affected, it could lead to several different neuropsychiatric disorders, among them is ASD.
The analysis conducted in this study paves the way for other researchers to investigate such pattern in their own data on several neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. We hope to see more studies investigate such link in both humans and animal models!
Check out our study featured in The Scientist
Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pcn.12909
