A longitudinal evaluation of growth outcomes at hospital discharge of very-low-birth-weight preterm infants

Toro, Yuliana; Vásquez‐Garibay, Edgar M.; González-Ojeda, Alejandro; Ramirez-Valdivia, Juan Manuel; Troyo-Sanromán, Rogelio; Carmona-Flores, G

doi:10.1038/ejcn.2011.191

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…In singletons, twins, and triplets the frequency of low birth weight (<2,500 g) is 3.9%, 42.7%, and 64%; and for very low birth weight (<1,500 g), it is 0.7%, 7%, and 27% (Gielen et al 2010). In singletons, the risk of childhood and adult disease is inversely related to birth weight across the birth weight spectrum (Larios-Del Toro et al 2011; Richmond 1990), and extremely low birth weight is associated with poorer neurobehavioral and cognitive outcomes (Aarnoudse-Moens et al 2009; Anderson & Doyle 2003; 2004; Orchinik et al 2011; Taylor et al 2009). While low birth weight is a consequence of prematurity, twins also exhibit lower gestational birth weight in the womb relative to singletons beginning in the third trimester (Blickstein et al 2000).…”

Section: The Maternal Environment (Maternal Effects I)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavior genetics and postgenomics

2012

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The science of genetics is undergoing a paradigm shift. Recent discoveries, including the activity of retrotransposons, the extent of copy number variations, somatic and chromosomal mosaicism, and the nature of the epigenome as a regulator of DNA expressivity, are challenging a series of dogmas concerning the nature of the genome and the relationship between genotype and phenotype. According to three widely held dogmas, DNA is the unchanging template of heredity, is identical in all the cells and tissues of the body, and is the sole agent of inheritance. Rather than being an unchanging template, DNA appears subject to a good deal of environmentally induced change. Instead of identical DNA in all the cells of the body, somatic mosaicism appears to be the normal human condition. And DNA can no longer be considered the sole agent of inheritance. We now know that the epigenome, which regulates gene expressivity, can be inherited via the germline. These developments are particularly significant for behavior genetics for at least three reasons: First, epigenetic regulation, DNA variability, and somatic mosaicism appear to be particularly prevalent in the human brain and probably are involved in much of human behavior; second, they have important implications for the validity of heritability and gene association studies, the methodologies that largely define the discipline of behavior genetics; and third, they appear to play a critical role in development during the perinatal period and, in particular, in enabling phenotypic plasticity in offspring. I examine one of the central claims to emerge from the use of heritability studies in the behavioral sciences, the principle of minimal shared maternal effects, in light of the growing awareness that the maternal perinatal environment is a critical venue for the exercise of adaptive phenotypic plasticity. This consideration has important implications for both developmental and evolutionary biology.Keywords: behavior genetics; developmental biology; evolutionary developmental biology; epigenetics; evo-devo; gene association studies; genetics; heritability; maternal effects; phenotypic plasticity; stochasticity; twin studies A paradigm shiftIt is one of the aims of any scientific discipline to construct models that will account for as many observations as possible within a coherent framework. These models, and the framework of which they are a part, constitute a scientific paradigm. A paradigm commonly includes a set of dogmas, or key assumptions concerning both the nature of certain phenomena and the methodologies employed to study them that are never doubted as long as the paradigm appears to work well. The history of science, as it turns out, is a history of overturned dogmas and supplanted paradigms (Kuhn 1970). The discovery of new phenomena -anomalies -that appear to violate a central dogma or dogmas -perhaps, according to the paradigm, they have been deemed incapable of existing -can constitute a serious challenge to a paradigm. Sometimes, these phenomena can...

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