In the first study to systematically investigate genome-wide epigenetic differences in a large number of psychosis discordant twin-pairs, research at the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King’s College London provides further evidence that epigenetic processes play an important role in neuropsychiatric disease. Published in Human Molecular Genetics, the findings may offer potential new avenues for […]
Neurons in the prefrontal cortex of individuals with autism show changes at numerous sites across the genome, according to a study being published Online First by the Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The study was carried out by Hennady P. Shulha, Ph.D., of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Mass., […]
Does Dad’s stress affect his unborn children? According to the results of a new study in Elsevier’s Biological Psychiatry, it seems the answer may be “yes, but it’s complicated”. The risk of developing depression, which is significantly increased by exposure to chronic stress, is influenced by both environment and genetics. The interplay of these two […]
Children whose mothers or grandmothers smoked during pregnancy are at increased risk of asthma in childhood, but the underlying causes of this are not well understood. Now a new study indicates changes in a process called DNA methylation that occurs before birth may be a root cause. The study will be presented at the ATS […]
An international study, led by University of Southampton researchers and including teams from New Zealand and Singapore, has shown for the first time that during pregnancy, a mother’s diet can alter the function of her child’s DNA. The process, called epigenetic change, can lead to her child tending to lay down more fat. Importantly, the […]
There is increasing evidence from human and animal studies that offspring of parents who were physically or psychologically stressed are at higher risk of developing obesity, and that these offspring may in turn “transmit” that increased risk to the next generation. Now research conducted at the University of Minnesota and Georgetown University suggests that a […]
When the Human Genome Project ended a decade ago, scientists thought that they had closed the lid on all that is to be known about our genes. But what they really did was open a Pandora’s Box, says theoretical evolutionary biologist Prof. Eva Jablonka of Tel Aviv University’s Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy […]
Mothers around the world now collectively can say, “I told you so.” Your vegetables are good for you, says a research review published by scientists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the journal Clinical Epigenetics. Included in this report is a video summary of the study results.
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