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Autism and Increased Paternal Age

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Comprehensive Guide to Autism

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Abstract

With today’s population living longer, there is a trend in many modern societies to delay parenthood until the prospective parents have completed their education and established their careers. This has resulted in an increase in children born to parents of advanced age, which has been linked to several disorders of brain development including mental retardation, schizophrenia, and autism. The underlying mechanisms for this relationship are believed to be complex and likely differ between maternal and paternal age effects. Maternal age has been associated with an increase in genetic disorders such as Down syndrome caused by duplication of chromosome 21. All of a female’s oocytes are present at birth, wherefore oocytes in older women have increased time to undergo genetic rearrangements and duplications. This is not true for fathers whose spermatocytes are continuously produced throughout life. Suggested mechanisms for an effect of advanced paternal age on autism and other disorders include de novo (new) mutations in older fathers’ DNA and multiple epigenetic mechanisms including changes in DNA methylation, histone modifications, and noncoding RNAs. Evidence for genetic and epigenetic mechanisms is reviewed herein and important areas for future research are highlighted.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Mark D. Alter

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, 125 South 31st Street, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Addie May Nesbitt

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  1. Mark D. Alter
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  2. Addie May Nesbitt
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Correspondence to Mark D. Alter .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Westminster, Faculty of Science & Technology, London, United Kingdom

    Vinood B. Patel

  2. Nutritional Sciences Division and Genomics Centre, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

    Victor R. Preedy

  3. Faculty of Society and Health, Buckinghamshire New University, Middlesex, United Kingdom

    Colin R. Martin

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Alter, M.D., Nesbitt, A.M. (2014). Autism and Increased Paternal Age. In: Patel, V., Preedy, V., Martin, C. (eds) Comprehensive Guide to Autism. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4788-7_86

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4788-7_86

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