Frances A. Champagne

TL;DR: It is shown that an epigenomic state of a gene can be established through behavioral programming, and it is potentially reversible, suggesting a causal relation among epigenomicState, GR expression and the maternal effect on stress responses in the offspring.

TL;DR: Findings indicate considerable, normal variations in licking/grooming in the rat that are a stable, individual characteristic of rat dams.

TL;DR: It is reported that methionine infusion reverses the effect of maternal behavior on DNA methylation, nerve growth factor-inducible protein-A binding to the exon 17 promoter, GR expression, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal and behavioral responses to stress, suggesting a causal relationship among epigenomic state, GRexpression, and stress responses in the adult offspring.

TL;DR: This work reports increased dendritic spine density with reduced developmental spine pruning in layer V pyramidal neurons in postmortem ASD temporal lobe and suggests that mTOR-regulated autophagy is required for developmental spinePruning, and activation of neuronal Autophagy corrects synaptic pathology and social behavior deficits in ASD models with hyperactivated mTOR.

TL;DR: Evidence for the generational transmission of maternal care and the mechanisms underlying this transmission will be discussed as will the implications of this inheritance system for offspring development and for the transmission of environmental information from parents to offspring.