Lucía Labaut, Agustín Lage-Castellanos, María José Rodrigo, Silvia Herrero-Roldán, Colter Mitchell, Jonah Fisher, Inmaculada León
BACKGROUND: The effects of adverse life events on physical and psychological health, with DNA methylation (DNAm) as a critical underlying mechanism, have been extensively studied. However, the epigenetic resemblance between mother and child in the context of neglectful caregiving, and whether it may be shaped by the emotional impact of maternal stressful events and the duration of co-residence (indexed by child age), remains unknown. The present study examined mother-child similarity in methylation profiles, considering the potential effect of mother adversity, mother empathy, neglect-control group, child age (an index of years of mother-child co-residence), and mother age...
March 20, 2024: Clinical Epigenetics