Charlie Chaplin and his daughtersFLICKR, KATE GABRIELLE
While women have long been told that fertility drops off as they age, men may have a biological clock as well. The offspring of older male mice have several copy number mutations in gene regions associated with developmental disorders, according to a new study publishing today (August 30) in Translational Psychiatry. The findings could explain why the children of older men have higher rates of schizophrenia and autism than those with younger fathers.
“This study is so important,” said Dolores Malaspina, a translational neuroscientist at the New York University Langone Medical Center, who was not involved in the study. Researchers have been reluctant to believe that mutations in sperm from older men could lead to developmental disorders, she said, and studies like this could go ...
