This is part two of Dr. Greenblatt's Nutritional Lithium series. Part one can be found here.
Epigenetics & Psychiatry
The field of epigenetics has far-reaching implications for psychiatry. As acquired epigenetic alterations can be transferred to the next generations, what scientists used to label as an inherited psychiatric disease may in fact be the result of epigenetic changes in a family’s shared environment.
Many psychiatric diseases are consistent with the theory of epigenetic dysregulation because of their fluctuating nature and disease course. Single gene and whole genome epigenetic analyses have shown atypical epigenetic markers in the blood and brain of individuals with psychiatric diseases including abnormalities in DNA methylation, histone modifications and microRNA expression.