The older the father at conception, the more likely his children will suffer from cognitive problems, a recent Australian study has shown.

The older the father at conception, the more likely his children will suffer from cognitive problems, a recent Australian study has shown.


Researchers at the University of Queensland, led by Professor John McGrath from the university's Queensland Brain Institute, have said while previous studies linked a father's age with an increased chance of children being diagnosed with schizophrenia and autism, less focus had been carried out on a father's age in relation to the cognition of his children.

"The results were quite startling as it was thought that the age of the father was less of a concern compared to the age of the mother," Professor McGrath said in a March 09 university news release.

"Now we are getting more evidence of the age of the father being just as important," he added. "The older a dad is, the worse his children tend to do in intelligence tests."

The team used data obtained from the Collaborative Perinatal Project in the United States, where over 33,000 children were tested at ages of eight months, four years and seven years on a variety of intelligence tests.

Comparing the intelligence test data with the age of the fathers, Professor McGrath's team made the clear link between a father's age and a children's cognition.

"Frankly, we were surprised to come up with such a clear cut finding," Professor McGrath said. "We are concerned that older men accumulate more mutations in the developing sperm cells. These mistakes then pile up and increase the risks of problems in the children, and it is possible that these mistakes will carry on into the next generation," he concluded.

The results were made all the more interesting because of the opposite effect on cognition of children born of older mothers, according to the team.

"Offspring of older women do better in similar tests, but this is usually put down to socio-economic status of women," said Professor McGrath. "But with the older dads, we wonder if the association is related to mutations in the developing sperm."

The findings of the research are published in PLOS Medicine.

Looking