Introduction

It is well known by now that mothers should not drink alcohol while they are pregnant, but what about the father’s alcohol consumption? A recent study published in the journal of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research tried to answer this question. What they found was that mice whose fathers consumed alcohol prior to conception had poor learning, behavior, and coordination and even misexpressed genes. These findings could completely change the way we do family planning and provide insight to why some children who have alcoholic fathers struggle in school.

Background

The topic of preconception paternal alcohol consumption has been around since at least the 1990s but many of the major findings have come within the last 5 years. Many early studies on the subject were unable to find a link between paternal alcohol consumption and adverse health outcomes for the baby like one study finding no link between paternal alcohol consumption and neuroblastoma risk for the baby (Yang et al. 2000). Another found no association between paternal alcohol consumption and fetal growth measurements (Windham et al. 1994). However, a later study from 2019 found that male mice born to alcohol consuming fathers had reduced weight up to 8 weeks following birth (Chang et al. 2019). Another study showed that paternal alcohol consumption can lead to adverse effects on reproductive health, especially in boys (Xia et al. 2018) and one more found paternal alcohol consumption increased the risk of spontaneous abortion that was similar to the risk as a result of maternal alcohol consumption (Henriksen et al. 2004). Finally, researchers found that paternal alcohol consumption increased the odds of microcephaly (Zuccolo et al. 2016) which is a common feature in fetal alcohol syndrome (Petrelli et al. 2019). While many of these studies focus on the physical feature issues that come from paternal alcohol consumption, the study from Conner and colleagues (Conner et al. 2020) looks at cognitive deficits as well as genetic deficits, namely genes that control neocortical development which seems to be an undiscovered area of research.

Methods

The researchers allowed 3–6-month-old male mice to consume a solution of 75% water and 25% ethanol for 3 weeks prior to conception. The control mice just consumed water for the 3 weeks leading up to conception. Following conception and 30 days after the birth of the baby mice, they put the mice through a series of tests such as the rotarod test which can be used to test balance, motor learning and motor coordination (Shiotsuki et al. 2010). They also performed a Suok test to look at anxiety like behavior. Following this, they analyzed the mice’s brains to weight and measure the entire brain as well as specifically the neocortex. They then performed in situ RNA hybridization for genetic analysis and targeted the genes Id2 and RZRb, which are important for neocortical patterning.

Results

What they found was that mice whose fathers consumed alcohol prior to conception performed worse in the rotarod test, suggesting reduced coordination, motor learning, and balance. From the Suok test, mice whose father consumed alcohol prior to conception were more active, suggesting increased anxiety. Following the autopsy, they found that there was no reduction in the neocortex of overall brain size of the mice. The neocortex is what is responsible for nearly all of the higher order functioning the brain is capable of (Rakic, 2009). However, the genes that give rise to some of the connectivity of the neocortex were incorrectly expressed, with some neuronal circuits protruding into areas of the neocortex that they are not supposed to. 

Discussion

These findings could lead to a complete overhaul of how we do family planning, as much of, if not all the attention now is on what mothers should do during pregnancy such as do not drink or smoke and exercise. It could now be thought that the father’s actions could be just as important with regards to the baby’s health. In addition to this, children of alcoholic fathers tend to perform worse in school and face behavior and developmental challenges (Poon et al, 2006). Rather than these issues being a result of environmental factors, this study can suggest that these are biological issues that result from a father that consumed alcohol prior to conception. More research is needed such as to confirm if this applies to humans and how long before conception should the father abstain from alcohol use, but if these questions are answered, I think it would be the start to the idea of paternal alcohol consumption affecting the child’s health becoming a mainstream concern. This study lays some great groundwork for future studies such as the neocortex being a specific area that there is misexpressed genes and some specific behavioral deficits individuals born to fathers that consumed alcohol prior to conception face.

[+] References

[+] Other Work By Derek Schreiner