Columbia University, Department of Psychology, 1190 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027, USA.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2011 Apr;36(3):352-71. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2010.06.005. Epub 2010 Jul 22.
The quality of the social environment can have profound influences on the development and activity of neural systems with implications for numerous behavioral and physiological responses, including the expression of emotionality. Though social experiences occurring early in development may be particularly influential on the developing brain, there is continued plasticity within these neural circuits amongst juveniles and into early adulthood. In this review, we explore the evidence derived from studies in rodents which illustrates the social modulation during development of neural systems, with a particular emphasis on those systems in which a long-term effect is observed. One possible explanation for the persistence of dynamic changes in these systems in response to the environment is the involvement of epigenetic mechanisms, and here we discuss recent studies which support the role of these mechanisms in mediating the link between social experiences, gene expression, neurobiological changes, and behavioral variation. This literature raises critical questions about the interaction between neural systems, the concordance between neural and behavioral changes, sexual dimorphism in effects, the importance of considering individual differences in response to the social environment, and the potential of an epigenetic perspective in advancing our understanding of the pathways leading to variations in mental health.
社会环境的质量可以对神经系统的发育和活动产生深远的影响，这对许多行为和生理反应都有影响，包括情感的表达。尽管早期发育过程中的社会经历可能对发育中的大脑特别有影响，但在青少年和成年早期，这些神经回路仍然具有可塑性。在这篇综述中，我们探讨了来自啮齿动物研究的证据，这些证据说明了发育过程中神经系统的社会调节，特别强调了那些观察到长期影响的系统。这些系统对环境的反应持续发生动态变化的一个可能解释是涉及表观遗传机制，在这里我们讨论了支持这些机制在介导社会经验、基因表达、神经生物学变化和行为变异之间联系的最近研究。这一文献提出了关于神经系统之间的相互作用、神经和行为变化之间的一致性、影响的性别二态性、考虑对社会环境反应的个体差异的重要性以及表观遗传学观点在推进我们对导致心理健康变化的途径的理解方面的潜力等关键问题。
