title: Maternal Exposure to Childhood Abuse is Associated with Mate Selection: Implications for Autism in Offspring.
abstract: Maternal experience of childhood abuse has been associated with offspring autism. To explore whether familial tendency towards autistic traits-presumably related to genetic predisposition-accounts for this association, we examined whether women who experienced childhood abuse were more likely to select mates with high levels of autistic traits, and whether parental autistic traits accounted for the association of maternal abuse and offspring autism in 209 autism cases and 833 controls. Maternal childhood abuse was strongly associated with high paternal autistic traits (severe abuse, OR = 3.98, 95% CI = 1.26, 8.31). Maternal and paternal autistic traits accounted for 21% of the association between maternal abuse and offspring autism. These results provide evidence that childhood abuse affects mate selection, with implications for offspring health.
authors.affiliation: Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. aroberts@hsph.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Andrea L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.affiliation: A.J. Drexel Autism Institute, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Kristen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lyall
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.|Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Marc G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Weisskopf
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018811:Maternal Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019529:Sexuality / Q000523:psychology; D018454:Spouses / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Autism; Childhood abuse; Genetics; Mate selection; Maternal factors; Paternal factors