Merrill Sarah M, Gladish Nicole, Kobor Michael S
Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, British Columbia Children's Hospital, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Curr Top Behav Neurosci. 2019;42:83-126. doi: 10.1007/7854_2019_114.
Our social environment, from the microscopic to the macro-social, affects us for the entirety of our lives. One integral line of research to examine how interpersonal and societal environments can get "under the skin" is through the lens of epigenetics. Epigenetic mechanisms are adaptations made to our genome in response to our environment which include tags placed on and removed from the DNA itself to how our DNA is packaged, affecting how our genes are read, transcribed, and interact. These tags are affected by social environments and can persist over time; this may aid us in responding to experiences and exposures, both the enriched and the disadvantageous. From memory formation to immune function, the experience-dependent plasticity of epigenetic modifications to micro- and macro-social environments may contribute to the process of learning from comfort, pain, and stress to better survive in whatever circumstances life has in store.
我们的社会环境，从微观到宏观层面，在我们的一生中都对我们产生影响。研究人际和社会环境如何“深入肌肤”的一个重要研究方向是通过表观遗传学的视角。表观遗传机制是我们的基因组针对环境做出的适应性变化，包括在DNA本身上添加和去除标记以及DNA的包装方式，这些都会影响我们的基因如何被读取、转录和相互作用。这些标记受社会环境影响且会随时间持续存在；这可能有助于我们应对各种经历和接触，无论是丰富的还是不利的。从记忆形成到免疫功能，表观遗传修饰对微观和宏观社会环境的经验依赖性可塑性可能有助于我们从舒适、痛苦和压力中学习，以便在生活所面临的任何环境中更好地生存。
