Symptom Development and Environmental Impact: how biological, psychological and social processes interact over a lifetime to influence health and vulnerability to disease.
With Daniel V Papero, PhD, LCSW of the Bowen Center in Washington, DC
And Darlene Francis, PhD, Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Public Health, University of California, Berkeley
When considering the field of neuroscience and an optimistic outlook towards health, this article provides hope in the possibilities of the brain’s capability of changing. Darlene Francis, PhD and Daniel V. Papero, Phd, LCSW specialize in subjects around molecular epigenetics or the way the environment influences how genes are phenotypically expressed and social epidemiology, how the structure of society influences factors of health. The idea that experience and social factors can effect biology is a beginning to understanding the possibility that the expression of genes can change. The example of addiction comes to light. For many years the belief was that addiction is a genetic disorder and if addiction or alcoholism runs in your family you are at risk. Once you are an addict or alcoholic you will always be an addict or alcoholic. While there may be some truth to this, a person’s environment can also change the course of an individual’s struggle with or triumph over addiction. The idea that information from the genes is one directional is not completely accurate, environmental factors are also important indicators of how the gene is expressed. This thought paradigm gives hope to the idea that environmental factors may also be capable of undoing the development of symptoms into more functional behavior.
Darlene Francis, PhD, Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Public Health, University of California, Berkeley
Daniel V Papero, PhD, LCSW of the Bowen Center in Washington, DC
