Epigenetics & AS/ASD ??

Post Reply New Topic

As I understand (in street English) Epigenetics is: (A) Kindof new genetics info (B) Sez that genes can be overwritten (chemically) after birth (C) To change gene function (D) So can change animal functions & traits.

So what might this Epigenetics say about the "why's and how's" of AS/ASD & WP facts & interests? I have no idea yet!

Overwritten, or just that their expression can be impacted as a result of environmental factors?

I think that epigenetics has more to do with which genes will get preference in a new body through inheritance. For re-working the brain you were dealt, see Neuroplasticity.

I don't know the chem-bio details of how-why epigenetics works, or what a good lay description of it is, or even if it's still vague.

I'm fascinated that some after birth genetic phenomenon may change a gene's workings, expression/etc. Is it in anyway after birth adaptive? Does it really get passed on to next generations? Does it in any way have a bearing on AS/ASD workings/traits? Can it in any way be thought to be a bio-environment feed forward mechanism? (A feed forward action would be wild.) Lots of questions!

^^ People have whole careers in trying to answer those questions, and for years, opinion was divided between nations. Lysenko (?sp) was the first to insist on rapid genetic changes, but he couldn't show that it was a matter of gene expression caused by stress rather than rapid evolution. These days, discussion of anything affecting human behaviour is dominated by ideologies.

Agree! But I'd add ignorance and a passive kindof lazyness to the ills.

From my understanding, here's how epigenetics works.

The vast majority of cells in your body have your entire genetic code in their nucleus. But that includes many, many genes that aren't relevant to that particular cell - eg a cell responsible for being a hair follicle doesn't need to know how to synthesize a neurotransmitter, for example.

So, there's these reader thingies that translate genes to proteins to build structures your cells need to build. And when you're early on in embryonic development and each cell is still figuring out what kind of cell it's supposed to be, these reader thingies put little markers on the DNA strand that say "ignore this chunk".

The whole decision-making process that determines which genes get read for which cells is epigenetics.