Effects of the social environment and stress on glucocorticoid receptor gene methylation: a systematic review
By Gustavo Turecki, Michael Joseph Meaney. Biological Psychiatry, 2014
647 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The early-life social environment can induce stable changes that influence neurodevelopment and mental health. Research focused on early-life adversity revealed that early-life experiences have a persistent impact on gene expression and behaviour through epigenetic mechanisms. The hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is sensitive to changes in the early-life environment that associate with DNA methylation of a neuron-specific exon 17 promoter of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR; NR3C1). Since Weaver et al published the initial findings in 2004, numerous reports have investigated GR gene methylation in relationship to early-life experience, parental stress and psychopathology. We conducted a systematic review of this growing literature, which identified 40 articles (13 animal and 27 human studies) published since 2004. The majority of these examined the GR exon variant 1F in humans or the GR17 in rats, and 89% of human studies and 70% of animal studies of early-life adversity reported increased methylation at this exon variant. All the studies investigating exon 1F/17 methylation in conditions of parental stress (one animal study and 7 human studies) also reported increased methylation. Studies examining psychosocial stress and psychopathology had less consistent results, with 67% of animal studies reporting increased exon 17 methylation and 17% of human studies reporting increased exon 1F methylation. We found great consistency among studies investigating early life adversity and the effect of parental stress, even if the precise phenotype and measures of social environment adversity varied among studies. These results are encouraging and warrant further investigation to better understand correlates and characteristics of these associations.
Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology, Education
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/234579366c9629c33f5eb0019f978b7fe3292dc0
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Citations in the corpus
- Holocaust Exposure Induced Intergenerational Effects on FKBP5 Methylation. (2016, background): “(38) and other investigators (51,52) focusing on early childhood trauma effects and the influence of the gene 3 early life environment interactions on methylation did not assess the contribution of parental experiences, particularly trauma exposure.”
- Racism and Health: Evidence and Needed Research (2019, background): “This elevated rate of bereavement and loss of social ties is a stressor that adversely affects levels of social ties and physical and mental health of blacks across the life course (119).”