Autism study validates importance of spontaneous causal mutations and sheds new light on gender skew
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 - 12:30
in Psychology & Sociology
A clinically extensive and mathematically powerful study of 1000 families with one autistic child and one unaffected sibling has validated a controversial theory of autism's complex genetic causation. The study for the first time estimates the minimum number of locations in the human genome -- 250 to 300 -- where gene copy number variation (CNV) can give rise to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It also sheds new light on the long observed but little understood "gender bias" of autism
