Search


	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		What are the impacts of nature vs. nurture when it comes to mood disorders?
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:03
	Publish Date:		2016-04-12 00:00:00
	Description:		Do your genetics or your environment determine whether you will develop a mood disorder? By comparing the brain structures of family members, neuroscientist Fumiko Hoeft from the University of California, San Francisco discovered that the region of the brain responsible for emotion is passed down from mother to daughter. But teasing out the impacts of nature versus nurture is a different story. To resolve this issue, Hoeft will study the brain structures in families that have used in-vitro fertilization, or IVF. "So what this allows us to do is to dissociate genetic, prenatal and postnatal environmental influence for the very first time in humans." Basically, if a surrogate mother keeps the child she carries, she’s not passing along her genetics, but she does affect the child’s prenatal and postnatal environments. This scenario differs from a surrogate mom who doesn’t raise the child, because in this case, she just influences the prenatal environment. "And so you can compare these different groups to try to dissociate these different pieces."
	Total Play:		0