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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3652 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 2, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Perhaps increasing maternal age at conception plays a minor role.

Note that in the case of autism, the correlation with paternal age is actually better-attested than that from maternal age. It's not like nondisjunction (Down's/Klinefelter/etc.) where it's specifically the oocytes stuck in metaphase for decades causing the problem and thus only the mother's age matters. It's probably something to do with mutational load, which actually goes up more with age in men because spermatogonii replicate (and have replication errors) during a man's life while a woman's oocytes do not.

I was aware that both are correlated, but I appreciate the detailed explainer, I wasn't aware of the mechanism!

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