title: Development and the epigenome: the 'synapse' of gene-environment interplay.
abstract: This paper argues that there is a revolution afoot in the developmental science of gene-environment interplay. We summarize, for an audience of developmental researchers and clinicians, how epigenetic processes - chromatin structural modifications that regulate gene expression without changing DNA sequences - may offer a strong, parsimonious account for the convergence of genetic and contextual variation in the genesis of adaptive and maladaptive development. Epigenetic processes may play a plausible explanatory role in understanding: divergent trajectories and sexual dimorphisms in brain development; statistical interactions between genes and environments; the biological embedding of early psychosocial adversities; the linkages of such adversities to disorders of mental health; the striking individual variation in the strength of those linkages; the molecular origins of critical and sensitive periods; and the transgenerational inheritance of risk and protection. Taken together, these arguments converge in a claim that epigenetic processes constitute a promising and illuminating point of connection - a 'synapse' - between genes and environments.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, USA; Child and Brain Development Program, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Canada.
authors.forename: W Thomas
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: Boyce
authors.forename: Michael S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Kobor
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015509:Developmental Biology; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D006801:Humans; D013569:Synapses / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*