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Epigenetics of anxiety and stress–related disorders is the field studying the relationship between epigenetic modifications of genes and anxiety and stress-related disorders, including mental health disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and more.
Behavioral epigenetics is the field of study examining the role of epigenetics in shaping animal and human behavior. [1] It seeks to explain how nurture shapes nature, [2] where nature refers to biological heredity [3] and nurture refers to virtually everything that occurs during the life-span (e.g., social-experience, diet and nutrition, and exposure to toxins). [4]
Pharmacogenetic research has focused on epigenetic factors related to BDNF, which has been a biomarker for neuropsychiatric diseases. BDNF has been shown to be sensitive to the prolonged effects of stress (a common risk factor of depressive phenotypes), with epigenetic modifications (primarily histone methylation) at BDNF promoters and splice ...
Neuroepigenetic mechanisms regulate gene expression in the neuron. Often, these changes take place due to recurring stimuli. Neuroepigenetic mechanisms involve proteins or protein pathways that regulate gene expression by adding, editing or reading epigenetic marks such as methylation or acetylation.
Research in rodents suggests that epigenetic changes can be observed in genes associated with the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which coordinates the body's stress response system. [113] [114] [19] Non-heritable stress-related epigenetic changes have also been studied in monkeys. [115]
Behavioral abnormalities that resemble human mental illness have been found in related species . Other theories suggest that mental illness could have evolutionary advantages for the species, including enhancing creativity [25] and stress to enhance survival by activating the flight-or-fight response in anticipation of danger.
The epigenetic marks can result in a wide range of effects, including minor phenotypic changes to complex diseases and disorders. [8] The complex cell signaling pathways of multicellular organisms such as plants and humans can make understanding the mechanisms of this inherited process very difficult. [9]
The function of DNA strands (yellow) alters depending on how it is organized around histones (blue) that can be methylated (green).. In biology, the epigenome of an organism is the collection of chemical changes to its DNA and histone proteins that affects when, where, and how the DNA is expressed; these changes can be passed down to an organism's offspring via transgenerational epigenetic ...