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This "older parents" hypothesis is thrown around very often, but it's entirely based on correlational studies (obviously, it wouldn't be ethically possible to d
by hannob 7y ago
This "older parents" hypothesis is thrown around very often, but it's entirely based on correlational studies (obviously, it wouldn't be ethically possible to do it in a controlled study).
And there's a very plausible alternative explanation for that correlation: Autism is probably at least partly genetic and autism impacts social interaction. It's very plausible to think that it simply takes people with autistic personality traits longer to find a partner to have children.
- patall 7y agoNo, its also based on the fact that older parents (and especially fathers) lead to more de-novo mutations (which you can already see in sperm) and in this study now they show that especially de-novo mutations play a role. If the older parents hypothesis was not true, you would not find higher autism rate is younger siblings or how do you account for that in your alternative explanation? But sure, as they say in the paper, its most likely not a single large effect variant that causes autism but usually the combination of multiple rare variants. The genetically inherited part may also play a rule. For a complex disease such as this, its not a single cause that is responsible even for one patient. A tall basketball player can be tall due to some luck, tall parents and good nutrition all at the same time.