title: The Emerging Field of Human Social Genomics.
abstract: Although we generally experience our bodies as being biologically stable across time and situations, an emerging field of research is demonstrating that external social conditions, especially our subjective perceptions of those conditions, can influence our most basic internal biological processes-namely, the expression of our genes. This research onhuman social genomicshas begun to identify the types of genes that are subject to social-environmental regulation, the neural and molecular mechanisms that mediate the effects of social processes on gene expression, and the genetic polymorphisms that moderate individual differences in genomic sensitivity to social context. The molecular models resulting from this research provide new opportunities for understanding how social and genetic factors interact to shape complex behavioral phenotypes and susceptibility to disease. This research also sheds new light on the evolution of the human genome and challenges the fundamental belief that our molecular makeup is relatively stable and impermeable to social-environmental influence.
authors.affiliation: Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology and Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles.
authors.forename: George M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Slavich
authors.forename: Steven W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Cole
keywords: 5-HTTLPR; DNA; RNA; disease; gene regulation; health; in_ammation; interleukin-6; metagenomics; social epidemiology; social isolation; social rejection; stress; transcription factors; transcriptome