Special symposium of the Association for Psychological Science:

Exploring the Dynamic Interaction Between Genes, Environment and the Brain

With modern advances in a number of scientific disciplines, we have moved from looking at genetic versus environmental factors to looking at the interplay between these factors in understanding individual differences in behaviour. In the process of development, the expression of genes is shaped by environmental experience, producing stable changes in individual characteristics that can persist within and across generations.  Speakers will discuss the interplay and interaction between genes and the environment as well as the exciting new field of epigenetics; providing insights into how this knowledge can be applied to the study neurobiological development and exploring the implications of this new understanding for the concept of inheritance.

Chair
Walter Mischel
Columbia University, USA



Walter Mischel is the Niven Professor of Humane Letters in Psychology at Columbia University (US). Mischel, Past President of the Association for Psychological Science, is one of the world’s most influential scientists.  His research is at the forefront of integrative and boundary-crossing research.  Some of his best known work includes the cognitive-affective processing model of personality and his longitudinal research in self-regulation, which spans personality, social, cognition, developmental, and cognitive neuroscience. Mischel was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2004 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1991. He has received innumerable awards and honors.  Most recently, he received an honorary doctorate from Hebrew University (Israel) and is the recipient of the 2011 Grawemeyer Award in Psychology.

Nurturing Nature:  Epigenetics, Neuro- biological Development, and Evolving Concepts of Inheritance

Frances A. Champagne
Columbia University, USA

Frances Champagne received her graduate training at McGill University in Montreal, completing a Master’s degree in the Department of Psychiatry and a PhD in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery. Her thesis research involved exploration of the neurobiology of individual differences in maternal behaviour in rodents and the epigenetic mechanisms mediating the transmission of maternal care across generations.  After completion of her PhD she continued her research at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom studying the role of genomic imprinting in reproductive behaviour. In 2006, Champagne was appointed Assistant Professor at Columbia University (US) in the Department of Psychology where she has developed a research group to investigate maternal regulation of epigenetic modifications and the transgenerational impact of the social environment. In 2007 she received an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and currently works in collaboration with clinicians and basic scientists in the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology and the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health to create links between research in animal models and studies of environmental influences on human neurodevelopment.

Epigenetics and the Effect of Early Trauma Across Generations

Isabelle M. Mansuy
University / ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Isabelle Mansuy is Associate Professor in Molecular Cognition at the Medical Faculty of the University Zürich, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (CH). She did a PhD in Developmental Neurobiology at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland and at the Université Louis Pasteur Strasbourg, France then a postdoc in the lab of Eric Kandel at the Center for Learning and Memory of Columbia University in New York. Her research examines the molecular mechanisms and epigenetic basis of complex brain functions and focuses in particular, on cognitive functions and behaviour in mammals, with a current focus on the importance of protein phosphatases in chromatin remodeling in the adult brain, and in the epigenetic control of memory formation. Mansuy’s research, which also focuses on the epigenetic basis of the influence of detrimental environmental factors on behaviour across generations, recently demonstrated that early trauma in mice induces depression, impulsiveness and impaired social skills, and that these behavioural symptoms are transmitted across several generations. She is currently examining the potential mechanisms involved. Research in the Mansuy lab is multidisciplinary, combining genetic and environmental animal models, epigenetic approaches, molecular, behavioral, electrophysiological, proteomic and imaging techniques.

Methylation Matters for Parenting and Child Development

Marinus Van Ijzendoorn
Leiden University, The Netherlands

Marinus H. van IJzendoorn is Professor of Child and Family Studies, Rommert Casimir Institute of Developmental Psychopathology, Institute of Education and Child Studies, Leiden University (NL), and Professor of Human Development, Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL).  With his colleagues and PhD students at the Centre for Child and Family Studies, van IJzendoorn conducts behavioural and molecular genetic research on attachment across the life-span, with special emphasis on differential susceptibility of children to parenting. His work also focuses on the epidemiology and neurobiology of child abuse and neglect.  He is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of the University of Haifa (2008), the Distinguished International Contributions to Child Development Award (Society for Research in Child Development, 2007), the Spinoza Prize awarded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (2004), and he was elected fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998).

Integrating Epigenetic Factors Into Studies of Complex Neuropsychiatric Disease

Jonathan Mill
Institute of Psychiatry, London

Jonathan Mill undertook his PhD research at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London (UK).  His interest in understanding the mechanisms behind gene-environment interaction took him to the University of Toronto (CA) where he did his postdoctoral training in epigenetics. He returned to the Institute of Psychiatry in 2007 to set-up a dedicated ‘psychiatric epigenetics’ research program at the MRC-funded Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry (SGDP) Centre. His group aims to explore the role of epigenetic changes in mediating risk for mental illness, with a particular focus on 1) genome-wide investigations of DNA methylation in post-mortem brain tissue for disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and Alzheimer’s disorder; 2) investigating the role of epigenetic variation in mediating phenotypic variation between genetically-identical individuals (i.e. monozygotic twins, inbred animals); 3) elucidating how external environmental factors may bring about long-term changes in gene expression via epigenetic alterations; 4) identifying novel imprinted regions of the genome, and their role in mediating parent-of-origin effects in psychiatric disorders; and 5) exploring interactions between genotype and epigenotype.