Psychiatric pathology, a perspective from epigenetics in pregnant women and infants
Keywords:
Psychiatric disorder, epigenetics, methylation, pregnant woman, infant.Abstract
Even though psychiatric pathologies generate great morbidity and mortality worldwide, strategies
for their prevention and treatment still need to be implemented. For this reason, the field of
epigenetics has provided information that allows associating psychosocial variables present
during pregnancy, with DNA modifications of the genes associated with mental illnesses, that in a
way facilitate the establishment of timely diagnostic methods.
Based upon this, the present study aimed to identify the epigenetic risk factors that trigger
psychiatric pathologies during pregnancy and childhood.
A systematic search with MeSH terms was conducted, in the following databases: Embase,
Cochrane, Pubmed and Epistemonikos, of articles published from January 2017 to February 2022.
As a result of this search, a total of 255 academic articles were obtained and according to the
inclusion criteria, 61 articles were finally selected that allowed to describe the relationship between
some psychiatric pathologies with the epigenetics of pregnant women and infants.
At the end of the review, it was found that several factors such as maternal diseases (depression,
anxiety, stress, perinatal inflammatory state, gestational diabetes), exposure to medications,
substance abuse, and demographic variables, influence the expression of genes related, especially,
to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
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