Editor's Summary
28 August 2008
Psychiatric illness: a mixed inheritance
In an Essay, Christopher Badcock and Bernard Crespi present the theory that psychiatric illness results from a 'tug-of-war' between genes programmed by the mother and father for expression in their offspring. As well as contributing DNA, the egg and sperm mark genes for expression or silencing via a process called imprinting. If conflict between maternally and paternally imprinted genes does prove to cause mental disorders, some aspects of diagnosis would be made simpler. It might even make it possible to reset the mind's balance with targeted drugs.
Essay: Battle of the sexes may set the brain
A tug-of-war between the mother's and father's genes in the developing brain could explain a spectrum of mental disorders from autism to schizophrenia, suggest Christopher Badcock and Bernard Crespi.
Christopher Badcock & Bernard Crespi
doi:10.1038/4541054a
