Genes, Behavior, and the Social Environment Moving Beyond the Nature/Nurture Debate (2006) / Chapter Skim
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6 Embedded Relationships Among Social, Behavioral, and Genetic Factors
6 Embedded Relationships Among Social, Behavioral, and Genetic Factors
Pages 109-131
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From page 109... ...
Such integration will provide a better understanding of how social factors are translated into physiological effects on cellular responses, including changes in gene expression. Likewise, the genomics revolution, catalyzed by the Human Genome Project, has stimulated widespread interest in how genetic variations may influence human behavior and response to social factors.
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From page 110... ...
, and investigators around the world are engaged in performing genetic association studies in order to better understand the influences of these variations on measures of health and disease. It is well known that genetic variations within a gene can alter its expression both quantitatively and qualitatively.
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From page 111... ...
(2005) found 27 genes with the greatest evidence of inherited expression patterns could be divided into 2 approximately equal subsets-those with SNP associations in their genomic region (cis-effects)
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From page 112... ...
. In general, microarray technology is an incredibly powerful tool used to investigate complex gene expression relationships on a genome-wide scale, and it likely will be invaluable in assessing the relationships among social, behavioral, and genetic factors as they relate to health and disease.
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From page 113... ...
For example, the work of Waterland and Jirtle (2004) suggests that prenatal and postnatal nutrition can have long-lasting epigenetic effects on an adult's predisposition to obesity, cardiovascular disease (CVD)
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From page 114... ...
. From the standpoint of assessing the associations and interactions among social, behavioral, and genetic factors, epigenetic processes are likely to play a major role in determining how these seemingly disparate factors operate together to give rise to the distribution of disease in a population.
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Proteomics Technologies Proteomics is the study of the full collection of proteins that make up our cellular and metabolic machinery. Because proteins are dynamically created and turned over as a part of normal cellular processes, proteins change in both quantity and activity depending on diet, stress, physical activity, and other environmental exposures.
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From page 116... ...
. THINKING FROM THE TOP DOWN: SOCIAL FACTORS INFLUENCING CELLS, TISSUES, AND PHYSIOLOGY In contrast to the "bottom up" approach, in a "top down" approach, external and human behavioral factors are mapped onto an individual's psychological response, which can then alter proteins, metabolites, and physiological processes.
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From page 117... ...
The Effects of Stress A vast body of research has been devoted to the study of the effects of stress on many biological processes throughout the life course, including CVD, immune function, and child development. Because psychologists, physiologists, and the general public use the word stress in many varying ways (Engle, 1985)
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. Chronic stress is implicated in many negative health outcomes that include diminished immune response, arthrosclerosis, resistance to glucocorticoids, and reproductive dysfunctions (Cavigelli and McClintock, 2003)
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High blood concentration of cholesterol and other lipids due to prolonged exposure to stress can increase the risk of developing arthrosclerosis and the risks of additional heart disease complications. Stoney et al.
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. Finally, the study analyzed whether stress originating from interpersonal/social situations had more of an impact on immune response than stress that was the result of nonsocial factors.
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EMBEDDED RELATIONSHIPS AMONG FACTORS 121 the presence of recognizable caregivers (Ainsworth and Bell, 1970; Sroufe, 1979)
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In this case, the molecularly embedded genetic information in the protein isoforms carried by the individual is translated into metabolic features that represent a gene-environment interaction. Our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of gene-environment interactions are likely to continue to expand as the "omic" technologies deliver more insight into the high-dimensional microcosms that selforganize into the macro properties of human biology that have been fine tuned to adapt to social, behavioral, and physical environments.
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From page 123... ...
is another important example of the use of systems concepts to model wholes from parts. In attempting to build bridges between social, behavioral, and genetic information about health and disease, investing in new systems approaches is likely to yield many new insights in areas of investigations such as how small nonlinear effects result in significant health outcomes.
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Work toward developing publicly available information on these levels could open up significant possibilities for the computer modeling of health outcomes. The development and practice of systems approaches to model social, behavioral, and genetic interactions involves a number of requirements that will pose particular challenges for researchers.
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The NIH should develop RFAs for studies of interactions that incorporate measurement, over the life course and within the context of culture, of key variables in the important domains of social, behavioral, and genetic factors. Essential social variables include educational attainment, income and wealth, occupational status, social networks/social support, and the work conditions that have been linked consistently and robustly to health outcomes.
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From page 126... ...
Recommendation 4: Investigate Biological Signatures. Researchers should use genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabonomic, and other high-dimensional molecular approaches to discover new con stellations of genetic factors, biomarkers, and mediating systems through which interactions with social environment and behavior influence health.
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EMBEDDED RELATIONSHIPS AMONG FACTORS 127 REFERENCES Aach J, Rindone W, Church GM.
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American Journal of Primatology 19:111-117. Champoux M, Byrne E, Delizio R, Suomi S
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Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics 2(1)
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American Journal of Human Genetics 71(6)
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EMBEDDED RELATIONSHIPS AMONG FACTORS 131 Stuart JM, Segal E, Koller D, Kim SK.
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