Have you ever suddenly realized, “OMG, I’m just like my dad (or mom)!” Oh, the horror .. the horror. Here’s John Updike from A Month of Sundays: Also my father, who in space-time occupied a stark room of a rest home an hour distant, which he furnished with a vigorous and Protean suite of senility’s [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Development’
My father’s genes unfold within me …
Posted in APOE, Hippocampus, tagged aging, Art, Development, Memory on April 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Is the genome as a blueprint for building your mind?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Development, Genetics on February 22, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Nope … “On mathematical grounds, it is difficult to understand how 10-to-the-14th synaptic connections in the human brain could be controlled by a genome with approximately 10-to-the-6th genes.” “… the classic dichotomy between “hard-wired” nativism and the “plasticity” championed by anti-nativists was woefully off the mark. Historically, “Anti-nativists”—critics of the view that we might be [...]
I’m bummed, can someone please methylate lysine 9 of my histone H3 protein?
Posted in SETDB1, tagged Development, Epigenetics, Mood on February 9, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Can you imagine uttering that phrase in the future? Yep. “… transgenic mice with increased Setdb1 expression in adult forebrain neurons show antidepressant-like phenotypes in behavioral paradigms for anhedonia, despair and learned helplessness.” SETDB1 is a protein that helps methylate lysine #9 on the histone H3 DNA binding protein … which leads to DNA CpG [...]
My white matter needs epigenetic change encoded by the genome
Posted in HDACs, tagged Central nervous system, Development, Epigenetics, Gene expression, White matter on November 26, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Image by Myelin Repair Foundation via Flickr from Ye et al., 2009: HDAC1/2 genes encode proteins that modify the epigenome (make it less accessible for gene expression). When HDAC1/2 functions around the HES5 and ID2/4 (repressors of white matter development) genes, the epigenetic changes (less acetylation of chromatin) helps to repress the repressors. This type [...]
Talk about nothing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Alison Gopnik, Children, Development, Developmental psychology, Psychology, Rubin Museum of Art, The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth Love and the Meaning of Life on November 9, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Yogic wisdom from kids? Maybe. Check out the upcoming lecture series at the Rubin Museum of Art: “Talk about Nothing” (literally, discussions on what “nothing” means) given by, among many others, developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik and scottish actor Brian Cox. Alison Gopnik argues that the minds of children could help us understand deep philosophical questions. [...]
Some 40 million-year-old ancestors have all the luck
Posted in 5HTT, Amygdala, Frontal cortex, tagged 5-HTTLPR, Anxiety, Brain, Cognition, Depression, Development, Frontal lobe, Gene expression, Genetics, Klaus Peter Lesch, Mental health on August 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
One day, each of us may have the dubious pleasure of browsing our genomes. What will we find? Risk for this? Risk for that? Protection for this? and that? Fast twitching muscles & wet ear wax? Certainly. Some of the factors will give us pause, worry and many restless nights. Upon these genetic variants we [...]
Movie star SIRT1 makes for a great body but an old brain
Posted in CREB, SIRT1, tagged aging, Aubrey de Grey, Brain, Chromosome, Development, Epigenetics, Gene expression, histone acetylation, synaptic plasticity on July 20, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Image by Smeerch via Flickr As far as science movies go, the new movie, “To Age or Not To Age” seems like a lot of fun. The interview with Dr. Leonard Guarente suggests that the sirtuin genes play a starring role in the film. Certainly, an NAD+ dependent histone deacetylase – makes for a sexy [...]
Genomic solutions for really big computational problems
Posted in Mindfulness, Visual cortex, tagged Cognition, Computation, Development, Neural network on June 22, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Image by Jeezny via Flickr Pity the poor brain. What a job it has! Did you know that just to reach into a refrigerator and grab a glass of milk, involves at least 50 or so key muscles in the hand, arm and shoulder which can, in principle, lead to over 1,000,000,000,000,000 possible combinations of [...]
Don’t ask what the genes for Prader-Willi syndrome do, ask where
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Brain, Conditions and Diseases, Development, Epigenetics, Frontal lobe, Gene expression, Genomic imprinting, Mutation, Prader-Willi syndrome, visual system, Williams Syndrome on April 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Image by Si1very via Flickr In an earlier post on Williams Syndrome, we delved into the notion that sometimes a genetic variant can lead to enhanced function – such as certain social behaviors in the case of WS. A mechanism that is thought to underlie this phenomenon has to do with the way in which [...]
First ever replication of a GxE in psychiatric genetics
Posted in CRHR1, Uncategorized, tagged Add new tag, Depression, Development, Emotion, Genetics, Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, Major depressive disorder, Mental disorder, Mental health, Single-nucleotide polymorphism, Stress on April 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Image via Wikipedia According to the authors of “Protective effect of CRHR1 gene variants on the development of adult depression following childhood maltreatment: replication and extension“ [PMID: 19736354], theirs is “the first instance of Genes x Environment research that stress has been ascertained by more than 1 study using the same instrument“. The gene they [...]
rs2132683, rs713155 and white matter near the left posterior lateral ventricle emerge from 14 billion statistical tests (vGWAS)
Posted in Frontal cortex, White matter, Temporal lobe, Lateral ventricle, tagged 23andMe, Add new tag, Brain, Development, Frontal lobe, Neuroimaging, Genetics, White matter, Temporal lobe, brain structure, Genome-wide association study, GWAS, Statistical hypothesis testing, Statistics on March 12, 2010 | 1 Comment »
An historic find has occurred in the quest (gold-rush, if you will) to link genome variation with brain structure-function variation. This is the publication of the very first genome-wide (GWAS) analysis of individual voxels (voxels are akin to pixels in a photograph, but are rather 3D cubes of brain-image-space about 1mm on each side) of [...]
Genes in the brain are like genes in muscles
Posted in Basal Ganglia, Caudate nucleus, DAT, Dopamine, Putamen, Substantia nigra, Subthalamic nucleus, tagged ADHD, Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Basal Ganglia, Brain, Cognition, Development, Frontal lobe, Gene expression, Genetic testing, Genetics, Health, inhibition, Mental disorder, Mental health, Neural network, Personalized medicine, Substantia nigra on March 5, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Image by theloushe via Flickr ** PODCAST accompanies this post** I have a little boy who loves to run and jump and scream and shout – a lot. And by this, I mean running – at full speed and smashing his head into my gut, jumping – off the couch onto my head, screaming – [...]
A look inside brains that carry (my) genetic risk for autism
Posted in Cerebellum, CNTNAP2, Frontal cortex, Frontal pole, Fusiform gyrus, Rostral fronto-occipital fasciculus, Thalamus, White matter, tagged 23andMe, Add new tag, autism, Autism spectrum, Brain, Development, Frontal lobe, Functional magnetic resonance imaging, Genetic testing, Genetics, Grey matter, Health, Mental disorder, Mental health, Neural development, Neurodevelopmental, synaptogenesis, White matter on March 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Image via Wikipedia The A-to-T SNP rs7794745 in the CNTNAP2 gene was found to be associated with increased risk of autism (see Arking et al., 2008). Specifically, the TT genotype, found in about 15% of individuals, increases these folks’ risk by about 1.2-1.7-fold. Sure enough, when I checked my 23andMe profile, I found that I’m [...]
Coping with the shifting sands of development one grain at a time
Posted in SAPAP3, Striatum, tagged Add new tag, Adolescence, Brain, Chemical synapse, Development, Mental disorder, NMDA, NMDA receptor, Obsessive–compulsive disorder, Walter Dean Myers, Young Landlords on February 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Image by mbrownstone via Flickr Walter Dean Myers, an author of The Young Landlords and many other classic coming of age novels once remarked, “The special place of the young adult novel should be in its ability to address the needs of the reader to understand his or her relationships with the world, with each [...]
FMR1 points to mechanisms of tactile defensiveness in autism spectrum disorders
Posted in FMR1, Somatosensory cortex, Thalamus, tagged autism, Autism spectrum, Brain, Cognition, critical period, Development, Mental disorder, Mutation, pruning, Rett Syndrome, sensory overload, synaptic plasticity, synaptic pruning on February 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Image by cobalt123 via Flickr If you have a minute, check out this “Autism Sensory Overload Simulation” video to get a feel for the perceptual difficulties experienced by people with autism spectrum disorders. A recent article, “Critical Period Plasticity Is Disrupted in the Barrel Cortex of Fmr1 Knockout Mice” [doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2010.01.024] provides some clues to [...]
RARB says I was born when my late born striosomal cells were born
Posted in Basal Ganglia, RARB, Striatum, tagged Ann Graybiel, Basal Ganglia, Brain, Cognition, Development, Dopamine, Mental health, Neural network, Psychology, schizophrenia, self, self awareness, Striatum on February 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Image via Wikipedia Everyone has a birthday right. Its the day you (your infant self) popped into the world and started breathing, right? But what about the day “you” were born – that is – “you” in the more philosophical, Jungian, spiritual, social, etc. kind of a way when you became aware of being in [...]
Semaphorins integrate the sweetness and development of our cortical 6-layer cake
Posted in RLN, SEMA(1-7), tagged Brain, cerebral cortex, Circuitry, Cognition, Development, economics, Frontal lobe, Gene expression, Mental disorder, Mental health, Messenger RNA, neural migration, Neuron, Prefrontal cortex, schizophrenia, Stem cell, University of Pittsburgh on January 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Image via Wikipedia For a great many reasons, research on mental illness is focused on the frontal cortex. Its just a small part of the brain, and certainly, many things can go wrong in other places during brain/cognitive development, but, it remains a robust finding, that when the frontal cortex is not working well, individuals [...]
C.H. Waddington provides conceptual framework for shifting influences of genes and environment in the development of mind
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Add new tag, Brain, Cognition, cognitive development, Development, evolution, Genetics, Human behavior, Intelligence, Mutation, Population genetics, Psychology, Twin, University of Edinburgh on January 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Just a pointer to onetime University of Edinburgh Professor C.H. Waddington’s 1972 Gifford Lecture on framing the genes vs. environment debate of human behavior. Although Waddington is famous for his work on population genetics and evolutionary change over time, several of his concepts are experiencing some resurgence in the neuroimaging and psychological development literatures these [...]
Suffocation and the developmental continuity between childhood separation and panic disorder
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Biology, Cognition, Development, DSM, Emotion, fear, Genetics, Mental disorder, Mental health, panic disorder, parental loss, separation anxiety disorder, Stress, Twin on January 11, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Image by Corrie… via Flickr Coping with fear and anxiety is difficult. At times when one’s life, livelihood or loved one’s are threatened, we naturally hightenen our senses and allocate our emotional and physical resources for conflict. At times, when all is well, and resources, relationships and relaxation time are plentiful, we should unwind and [...]
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