Battle of the sexes may set the brain

摘要

It has long been recognized that mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and autism tend to run in families. But neither disorder obeys classical Mendelian laws of inheritance, making it difficult to pinpoint the genes involved. We believe that psychiatric illness may be less to do with the genes a mother and father pass down, and more to do with which genes they program for expression. By our hypothesis, a hidden battle of the sexes - where a mother's egg and a father s sperm engage in an evolutionary struggle to turn gene expression up or down - could play a crucial part in determining the balance or imbalance of an offsprings brain. If this proves true, it would greatly clarify the diagnosis of mental disorders. It might even make it possible to reset the mind's balance with targeted drugs.