The Sherman paradox was a term used to describe the anomalous pattern of inheritance found in fragile X syndrome.
The paradox was named in the late 1980s after American geneticist Stephanie Sherman, who studied the inheritance patterns of people with fragile X syndrome.
Under an electron microscope, a region on the long arm of the chromosome resembles a thin string.
[2] A similar mechanism, involving triplet repeats, underlies myotonic dystrophy, spinocerebellar ataxia and Huntington's disease.
Autopsies of affected individuals reveal an accumulation of long repeats of CAG in DNA in the striatum.