DISC1 and autism: In contrast, several candidate autism susceptibility genes were also hypomethylated; for example, Disc1, which is known to play a pivotal role in cortical development, and Scn8a, which modulates membrane depolarization, were hypomethylated in the gene body in both male and female offspring (P <0.05) in the HMFA group (Additional file 4: Table S5 and Additional file 5: Table S6).