fathers – ASF Weekly Science Podcasts

June 17, 2024June 17, 2024

Father of mine

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In recognition of Father’s Day on the 16th, today’s podcast includes the latest research on fathers. Fathers may often be the “secondary caregiver” but should hardly be dismissed as inconsequential. Father’s sensitivity and insightfulness plays an important part in development, psychiatric diagnoses (including autism) change the the chance of having a child with autism, and more understanding is being done on the heritable factors associated with chemical exposures in the father.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616734.2024.2326416

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11059471/pdf/main.pdf

June 17, 2018

Ode to autism dads

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On the heels of Father’s Day, this week’s podcast summarizes the last year or so of research which focuses on the fathers. This includes genetics, parental stress and quality of life, and broader autism phenotype features. Of note, two new studies that look at antidepressant exposure in father and probability of having a child with autism – a variation on studying maternal exposures. For anyone interested, here is a list of references used:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28630308

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28750543

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29884724

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25339495

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29731598

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29478155

May 22, 2017May 22, 2017

A new understanding of autism genetics

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Lots of people tend to think of the genetics of disorders or disease about one mutation or genetic variation that is inherited from the mother or the father, that causes a trait directly. Unfortunately, the genetics of autism isn’t that simple or scientists would have found “the gene” by now. In fact, there are different types of genetic influences in autism. A new study in Nature Genetics led by Elise Robinson shows how common variation influences autism risk, as well as intellectual function in autism, compared to de novo mutations. There is a short primer at the beginning of the podcast about old-school genetic thinking and why it doesn’t apply to ASD. Below is the picture mentioned.