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Maternal Exposure to Childhood Abuse is Associated with Mate Selection: Implications for Autism in Offspring

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Abstract

Maternal experience of childhood abuse has been associated with offspring autism. To explore whether familial tendency towards autistic traits—presumably related to genetic predisposition—accounts for this association, we examined whether women who experienced childhood abuse were more likely to select mates with high levels of autistic traits, and whether parental autistic traits accounted for the association of maternal abuse and offspring autism in 209 autism cases and 833 controls. Maternal childhood abuse was strongly associated with high paternal autistic traits (severe abuse, OR = 3.98, 95% CI = 1.26, 8.31). Maternal and paternal autistic traits accounted for 21% of the association between maternal abuse and offspring autism. These results provide evidence that childhood abuse affects mate selection, with implications for offspring health.

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Funding

This study was funded by US Department of Defense (DOD) W81XWH-08-1-0499, United States Army Medical Research and Material Command (USAMRMC) A-14917, US National Institutes of Health (NIH) T32MH073124-08 and P60AR047782, and Autism Speaks grants 1788 and 2210. The Nurses’ Health Study II is funded in part by NIH UM1 CA176726.

Author Contributions

AR participated in the conception of the study, performed the statistical analysis, and drafted the manuscript; KL participated in the collection of data and coordination of the study, and in the design and interpretation of the data; MW participated in the conception of the study and its design and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Andrea L. Roberts.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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The Partners Healthcare Institutional Review Board approved this research and deemed completion and return of questionnaires by US mail to constitute implied consent.

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Roberts, A.L., Lyall, K. & Weisskopf, M.G. Maternal Exposure to Childhood Abuse is Associated with Mate Selection: Implications for Autism in Offspring. J Autism Dev Disord 47, 1998–2009 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3115-3

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