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However, the team’s study only looked at a very small number of people, so strong conclusions cannot be drawn yet.
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“Given that the protein is known to be important in synapse formation, you can see how maternal antibodies might affect the wiring of the fetal brain, and that might explain why each subsequent son is more likely to grow up gay.” “This is a very important study because it provides a plausible mechanism to explain the fraternal birth order effect, perhaps the most firmly established phenomenon related to human sexual orientation,” says Marc Breedlove at Michigan State University. “The mother’s immune response may alter the typical function of these brain structures.” “So it could affect brain structures that moderate attraction,” he says. The protein targeted by the antibodies, called NLGN4Y, is thought to play a role in how brain cells connect to each other, says Bogaert. They thought this would be a good candidate, because it plays an important role in how neurons communicate with each other, and because it is produced on the surface of brain cells, making it relatively easy for antibodies to find and detect it. The team collected blood from 142 women, and screened it for antibodies to a particular brain protein that is only made in males. Bogaert’s team wondered if maternal antibodies might play a role in shaping sexual orientation. But pregnant women sometimes also produce antibodies against fetal molecules – for example, if their fetus has a different blood group.
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Our immune systems make antibodies to recognise foreign molecules, which have the potential to be from dangerous bacteria. Now it seems that increasing levels of antibodies in a mother’s immune system could play a role.Īnthony Bogaert at Brock University, Canada, and his team think that some women who are pregnant with boys develop antibodies that target a protein made by the Y chromosome. The more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to be gay when he grows up – an effect called the “ fraternal birth order effect”. Having lots of boys can affect a woman’s immune response