...Santina Wood ENG101 Argosy University 03/4/2014 Instructor Benjamin Atkins Epigenetics -vs- Nature -vs- Nurture The nature vs nurture debate is still ongoing, and within this debate, the world of science and psychology are faced with two new questions. Today we find some researchers asking; "Is development predetermined at birth, by hereditary factors, or do experience and other environ -mental factors affect it?", and "Can the two work together in shaping human development and behavior?" Developmental psychologists still attempt to find the answers to these questions in order to discover the sources of growth in children's cognitive, language, and social skills. Most developmental psychologists believe that nature and nurture combine to influence biological factors playing a stronger role in some aspects, such as physical development, and environmental factors playing a stronger role in others, such as moral development. They are also beginning to acknowledge the role of a variable combination of both inborn factors and social experiences when explaining children's behavior. Scientists and Psychologists have a name for such an occurrence; epigenetics/epigenesis. In this essay, I will be presenting to my audience information on this highly, and sometimes heated debate, as well as the reasons as to why the belief of this dual influence called epigenetics is becoming more fact than theory. For as long as there has been life, and those...
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...expression of those genes. Summarize the role that epigenetics & developmental epigenetics play in health & disease. Epigenetic modifications are a dynamic process reflecting a complex interplay between an organism and its environment. For example, the acetylation of lysine residues in histone subunits usually can result in promoting gene transcription, or the methylation of Lys9 or Lys27 of histone H3 is correlated with gene repression. However, the methylation of Lys4, Lys36, or Lys79 of H3 is ordinarily associated with gene activity[44]. The heritable quantity of gene expressions is about 30%, while this percentage is decreased to about 23% in cells grown in culture. Such associations between methylation levels and genetic variations have...
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...span development or science of human development follows the scientific method in order, to prove or disprove development theories. It will be described what life span development is and the purpose of human development. From there an understanding of two development theories will be explained. The theories are to give the reader and understanding of how scientists have tried to partly explain human development. This is also why heredity and environmental influences will also be examined, considering the theories place emphasis on both. The science of human development is “to understand how and why people—all kinds of people, everywhere—change or remain the same over time” (Berger, 2008. p. 3). Further, human development has three fundamentals that help define the study. The first is the science, as stated before the science of human life span development is based on the scientific method. Theories are hypothesized, data is collected on experiments or observation, the data reveals whether the hypothesis is correct or incorrect and form here scientists can determine what the conclusion means (Berger, 2008. p. 4). The second is diversity, in which considering the different kinds of people (Berger, 2008 p. 4). Studying the different people of all ages, race, and around the globe allows further compare and contrast of different life spans among a diverse group. The last fundamental is connections between change and time. The study examines, “human development includes all the transformations...
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...of different areas that might provide important insight on mechanisms that may cause this disorder. Epigenetics is the study of how various changes may arise from gene expression rather than alterations in the genetic code itself. The connection between epigenetics and autism is best articulated by Dr. Alycia Halladay, the director of research for environmental sciences for Autism Speaks. Dr. Halladay explains, “because epigenetics gives us a way to look at the interaction between genes and environment, it holds great potential for identifying ways to prevent or reduce the...
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...condition that occurs in individuals who have been exposed to a traumatic event. In this paper, PTSD is examined through multiple studies as an example of a human behavioral trait in an effort to discover the extent of its heritability as well as to challenge Erik Turkheimer’s “first law” of behavioral genetics. From twin studies and family studies of individuals with PTSD, it is apparent that the heritability of PTSD is correlated with multiple factors such as sex, family history, and educational background. The environmental factor of nonshared experiences before experiencing a traumatic event can also significantly influence PTSD development in both monozygotic and dizygotic...
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...Twins Photo: Twins A Thing or Two About Twins They have the same piercing eyes. The same color hair. One may be shy, while the other loves meeting new people. Discovering why identical twins differ—despite having the same DNA—could reveal a great deal about all of us. By Peter Miller Photograph by Martin Schoeller Every summer, on the first weekend in August, thousands of twins converge on Twinsburg, Ohio, a small town southeast of Cleveland named by identical twin brothers nearly two centuries ago. They come, two by two, for the Twins Days Festival, a three-day marathon of picnics, talent shows, and look-alike contests that has grown into one of the world's largest gatherings of twins. Dave and Don Wolf of Fenton, Michigan, have been coming to the festival for years. Like most twins who attend, they enjoy spending time with each other. In fact, during the past 18 years, the 53-year-old truckers, whose identical beards reach down to their chests, have driven more than three million miles together, hauling everything from diapers to canned soup from places like Seattle, Washington, to Camden, New Jersey. While one sits at the wheel of their diesel Freightliner, the other snoozes in the bunk behind him. They listen to the same country gospel stations on satellite radio, share the same Tea Party gripes about big government, and munch on the same road diet of pepperoni, apples, and mild cheddar cheese. On their days off they go hunting or fishing together. It's a way...
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...melanoma [2]. Why do we need personalized medicine? Genetics turns out to be more and more personal because detecting our own DNA is fast becoming inexpensive and accessible. Personal genetics provides insights about our health, behavior, family history and other characters, as well as offers highly personal information with personal, familial and social influence. Moreover, the genetic testing is directly available to customers. The dramatic increase in sequencing efficiency, together with rapid reductions in cost, and the pace of ongoing technical improvements have created both excitement and anticipation. In less than 10 years, the time and expense of DNA sequencing of a human genome has been reduced by a factor of over 1 million. A personal genome has about 100GB of data, or about 100,000 digital photographs of equivalent. Data from a million genomes will form hundreds of petabytes (1 petabyte = 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes = 1015 bytes = 1000 terabytes = 1 million gigabytes) of data, the production and storage of which would have been almost unimaginable just a decade ago [3]. The arrival of cloud computing and cloud storage provides the approaches and capacity for handling these massive amounts of data. A few years ago, the expense of sequencing a whole human genome was more than 1 million dollars, and took more than 1 month. At present, the cost of this sequencing has decreased by more than 100-fold and takes a few hours [4]. Some have debated there would be a revolution in...
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...status may result in developmental adaptations that permanently change the structure, physiology, and metabolism of the offspring, thereby predisposing individuals to metabolic, endocrine, and cardiovascular diseases in adult life. Animal studies show that both maternal undernutrition and over nutrition reduce placental-fetal blood flows and stunt fetal growth. Impaired placental syntheses of nitric oxide (a major vasodilator and angiogenesis factor) and polyamines (key regulators of DNA and protein synthesis) may provide a unified explanation for intrauterine growth retardation in response to the 2 extremes of nutritional problems with the same pregnancy outcome. There is growing evidence that maternal nutritional status can alter the epigenetic state (stable alterations of gene expression through DNA methylation and histone modifications) of the fetal genome. This may provide a molecular mechanism for the impact of maternal nutrition on both fetal programming and genomic imprinting. Promoting optimal nutrition will not only ensure optimal fetal development, but will also reduce the risk of chronic diseases in adults. Maternal nutrition plays a critical role in fetal growth and development. Although considerable effort has been directed towards defining nutrient requirements of animals over the past 30 y, suboptimal nutrition during gestation remains a significant problem for many animal species (e.g., cattle, pigs, and sheep) worldwide. Despite advanced...
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...of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, 3 Ben May Department for Cancer Research, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America Summary: Recent cancer studies emphasize that genetic and heritable epigenetic changes drive the evolutionary rate of cancer progression and drug resistance. We discuss the ways in which nonheritable aspects of cellular variability may significantly increase evolutionary rate. Nonheritable variability arises by stochastic fluctuations in cells and by physiological responses of cells to the environment. New approaches to drug design may be required to control nonheritable variability and the evolution of resistance to chemotherapy. Cancer progression is a series of evolutionary changes. Those changes include enhanced cellular proliferation, reduced cellular death by abrogating normal apoptotic mechanisms, greater invasiveness by increased expression of proteases, and improved colonizing ability to achieve metastasis [1]. In response to drug treatment, cancer cells often evolve resistance and continue to spread. Each evolutionary step typically proceeds by acquisition of genetic or heritable epigenetic changes in cells. When does the novel genetic change arise in an evolutionary step? By the current view, rare genetic variants arise before widespread phenotypic change. The idea is that a novel phenotype always comes from a novel genotype [2,3]. For example, rare resistant...
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...models of addiction as it relates to substance and alcohol related abuse. Before delving into the causes of addiction we will develop an understanding of what addiction is and what it is not by viewing a few theories and definitions of addiction. We will also develop an understanding of what constitute a diagnosis of addiction and causes one to develop an addiction in the context of genetic predisposition, disease and the prevalence of addiction among individuals with co-occurring disorders stemming from traumatic experiences such as childhood abuse. Addiction Defining addiction is not a simplistic task as there are many theories and definitions of addiction and how addiction develops. In Drugs and addiction: an Introduction to Epigenetics, Wong, Mill, & Fernandes (2011) defines addiction as “a debilitating psychiatric disorder, with a complex etiology involving the interaction of inherited predispositions and environmental factors” (Wong, Mill & Fernandes, 2011, p. 480). One may agree with Drs. Wong, Mill and Fernandes definition of addiction as it relates to genetic predispositions or environmental factors; however, the seems to...
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...Nursing in 3D: Diversity, Disparities, and Social Determinants The Social Determinants of Health: It’s Time to Consider the Causes of the Causes Paula Braveman, MD, MPHa Laura Gottlieb, MD, MPHb ABSTRACT During the past two decades, the public health community’s attention has been drawn increasingly to the social determinants of health (SDH)—the factors apart from medical care that can be influenced by social policies and shape health in powerful ways. We use “medical care” rather than “health care” to refer to clinical services, to avoid potential confusion between “health” and “health care.” The World Health Organization’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Health has defined SDH as “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age” and “the fundamental drivers of these conditions.” The term “social determinants” often evokes factors such as health-related features of neighborhoods (e.g., walkability, recreational areas, and accessibility of healthful foods), which can influence health-related behaviors. Evidence has accumulated, however, pointing to socioeconomic factors such as income, wealth, and education as the fundamental causes of a wide range of health outcomes. This article broadly reviews some of the knowledge accumulated to date that highlights the importance of social—and particularly socioeconomic— factors in shaping health, and plausible pathways and biological mechanisms that may explain their effects. We also discuss...
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...SUMMARY OF WORLD HAPPINESS REPORT 2013 WORLD HAPPINESS REPORT 2013 was edited by John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs In July 2011 the UN General Assembly passed a historic resolution. It invited member countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use this to help guide their public policies. The first WORLD HAPPINESS REPORT was published in 2012. The need is a rising worldwide demand that policy framing must be closer to issues that really matters to people as perceived from their lives. The reports look for differences and trends in the equality or inequality with which happiness is distributed within and among countries and regions. The essence of traditional virtue ethics is that happiness is achieved by harnessing the will and the passions to live the right kind of life. A desirable level of happiness means feeling mildly to moderately positive usually, with occasional negative emotions in appropriate situations. Promoting a healthy start in life is vital, and there is ample evidence to indicate that early intervention programs have an important protective or preventive effect. Also, individuals who are happier tend to have better social relations. Well-being is also related to having less gossip and more meaningful conversations. The questions to use must be chosen according to end use purpose since they are of critical importance for measuring subjective wellbeing. The contextual impact of preceding questions must be also taken care of. The analysis...
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...Adding to this, other non-modifiable factors which occur in conjunction with the modifiable factors contribute to childhood obesity. This paper will analyze these two factors, with specific emphasis on the modifiable factors, and the appropriate prevention strategies that can be employed to reduce its prevalence in the population aged below 16 years old. Childhood obesity is a major public health problem that has reached epidemic proportions in both developed and developing countries. A significant amount of both financial and human resources have been allocated to analyze its causes, prevention strategies and management schedules. Knowing the causes of childhood obesity and the appropriate prevention strategies helps the public heath sector and any other relevant authority to re-evaluate and incorporate prevention strategies into its programmes. Understanding Childhood Obesity Childhood obesity is a disease of caloric imbalance that occurs after excessive intake of calories above the required consumption levels resulting in excess body fat that negatively affects the child’s health and wellbeing. Diagnosis of obesity is based on two commonly used measurement methods. The first is Anthropometric measurements of which the most commonly used measurements are the triceps skin fold and mid-arm muscle circumference which are compared to standard anthropometric charts (Satter, 2005). The second method is Body mass index (BMI) whose measurement is done for accurate quantitative...
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...Centenarians: The Biological, Sociological and Psychological Secrets to Human Longevity Amanda S. Primm Missouri State University Fall 2014 Abstract There is increasing interest from a multidisciplinary perspective in the study of centenarians, or individuals who live up to and beyond the age of 100. It is possible that these individuals are merely born to an excellent gene pool, or that they have superior coping skills that make it easier to deal with the stresses of life, thus prolonging their healthy status, or that the key to living a century and beyond resides very simply in healthy living, which includes regular exercise, and avoiding the detrimental effects of smoking, alcohol, and foods that contribute to...
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...determines human behavior has been going on for many years now, is it nature or nurture? The broad scope of human behavior has compelled researchers across various fields to systematically analyze what compels individuals to act the way they do. Is human behavior encoded in genetics or does it evolve by way of individual experience and environment. Through the review of recent empirical data across these various fields it is clear that both nature and nurture plan an important role in the development of human behavior. Subsequently multidirectional models have emerged with a mounting emphasis on how nature and nurture act independently in addition to collectively each forever shaping the other. Together Nature and Nurture Shape Human Behavior. The discussion concerning the appropriate significance of genetics and environment in human behavior has been around for quite a long while. This topic has generated massive attention, throughout the years, gaining numerous supporters on both sides of the debate. This attention essentially, has lead to some of the most remarkable psychological discoveries in recent years. The terms nature and nurture can be traced back to13th century France, expressed by Francis Galton in 1874 (Nature versus nurture, 2011). The term nurture in refers to the manner in which behavior is shaped by culture and environment. It builds its foundation on John B. Watson's theory of behaviorism, which suggests that human behavior is...
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