Socio-behavioral development, very-early environments in genesis and its implications in health education

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A recent trend of late marriage and late pregnancy might affect very early embryonic environments and genome in developed countries including Japan. The late marriage and pregnancy increase the age of conception, or in other words, cause conception by older egg and sperm. This increases the challenge in natural conception and a substantial portion of the cases may require help of assisted reproduction technology(ART), such as IVF(in-vitro fertilization) and ICSI(intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection). Effects of late conception and ART on behavioral development remain to be studied, because they prevailed rapidly in a couple of decades. This study examined the effects using several methods including a clinical chart review and a cohort survey of children born with/without the help of ART. Prevalence of de novo CNV(copy number variation) in genomic DNA was also tested in familial trios of autism spectrum disorder(ASD) children. Analyses are ongoing. The clinical chart review thus far suggests that higher ages in parents(both fathers and mothers) could be associated with the development of ASD and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.