Beliefs

Burying human transgenerational epigenetic evidence

gettingwell4 < 0 Detracted from science, Beliefs, Cerebrum, Epigenetics , ,

The poor substitutes for evidence in this 2018 US study guaranteed that human transgenerational epigenetically inherited effects wouldn’t be found in the generations that followed after prenatal diethylstilbestrol (DES) exposure:

“A synthetic, nonsteroidal estrogen, DES was administered to pregnant women under the mistaken belief it would reduce pregnancy complications and losses. From the late 1930s through the early 1970s, DES was given to nearly two million pregnant women in the US alone.

Use of DES in pregnancy was discontinued after a seminal report showed a strong association with vaginal clear cell adenocarcinoma in prenatally exposed women. A recent analysis of the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) DES Combined Cohort Follow-up Study showed elevated relative risks of twelve adverse health outcomes.

We do not have sufficient data concerning the indication for DES in the grandmother to determine whether adverse pregnancy outcomes in the third generation might resemble those of their grandmothers. Fourth generation effects of prenatal exposures in humans have not been reported.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890623818304684 “Reproductive and Hormone-Related Outcomes in Women whose Mothers were Exposed in utero to Diethylstilbestrol (DES): A Report from the US National Cancer Institute DES Third Generation Study” (not freely available)

This study had many elements in common with its poor-quality reference [25] “Transgenerational effects of prenatal exposure to the 1944–45 Dutch famine” which is freely available at https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1471-0528.12136.

That study’s Methods section showed:

  1. Its non-statistical data was almost all unverified self-reports by a self-selected sample of the F2 grandchildren, average age 37.
  2. No detailed physical measurements or samples were taken of the F2 grandchildren, or of their F1 parents, or of their F0 grandparents, all of which are required as baselines for any transgenerational epigenetic inheritance findings.
  3. No detailed physical measurements or samples were taken of the F3 great-grandchildren, which is the generation that may provide transgenerational evidence if the previous generations also have detailed physical baselines.

That study’s researchers drew enough participants (360) such that their statistics package allowed them to impute and assume into existence a LOT of data. But the scientific method constrained them to make factual statements of what the evidence actually showed. They admitted:

“In conclusion, we did not find a transgenerational effect of prenatal famine exposure on the health of grandchildren in this study.”

The current study similarly used the faulty methods 1-3 above to produce results such as:

“We do not have sufficient data concerning the indication for DES in the [F0] grandmother to determine whether adverse pregnancy outcomes in the [F2] third generation might resemble those of their grandmothers.

Fourth [F3] generation effects of prenatal exposures in humans have not been reported.“

Zero studies of probably more than 10,000,000 F3 great-grandchildren of DES-exposed women just here in the US?

Who is against funding these studies? Who is afraid of what such studies may find?

One plausible hypothesis of these human studies would be of inherited effects that skipped generations! The rodent studies Epigenetic transgenerational inheritance mechanisms that lead to prostate disease and Epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of ovarian disease found inherited diseases that didn’t manifest until the F3 great-grand offspring:

The F3 generation can have disease while the F1 and F2 generations do not.

Ancestral exposure to toxicants is a risk factor that must be considered in the molecular etiology of ovarian disease.

For the current study:

  • What could be expected from a study design that didn’t include F3 women and men, which is the only generation that didn’t have direct DES exposure?
  • What a nonsensical study design to permit NON-evidence like educational level!

Human studies of possible intergenerational and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance are urgently needed. There will be abundant evidence to discover if researchers will take their fields seriously.

Fear of feeling?

gettingwell4 2-3 stars Required further work, Beliefs, Brain development, Cerebrum, Epigenetics, Limbic system, Lower brain, Primal Therapy , , ,

Here’s a 2018 article from two researchers involved in the Dunedin (New Zealand) Longitudinal Study. They coauthored many studies, including People had the same personalities at age 26 that they had at age 3.

The paper’s grand hypothesis was:

“A single dimension is able to measure a person’s liability to mental disorder, comorbidity among disorders, persistence of disorders over time, and severity of symptoms.”

The coauthors partially based this on:

“Repeated diagnostic interviews carried out over 25 years, when the research participants were 11, 13, 15, 18, 21, 26, 32, and 38 years old, and include information about seven diagnostic groups: anxiety, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, substance dependence, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.”


https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.17121383 “All for One and One for All: Mental Disorders in One Dimension” (not freely available)

More about the coauthors:

Two psychologists followed 1000 New Zealanders for decades. Here’s what they found about how childhood shapes later life

“Dunedin and other studies show that most people have at least one episode of mental illness during their lifetime.”

What compels people to manufacture “universal” truths? Aren’t such beliefs poor substitutes for feeling? For understanding historical, factual, personal truths?

What if the price we pay for avoiding and pressuring down our feelings is: A wasted life?

What if the grand hypothesis worth proving is: For one’s life to have meaning, each individual has to regain their feelings?

Unindexed comment links?

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Beliefs, Cerebrum, Epigenetics, Limbic system, Lower brain, Memory, Neurochemicals, Primal Therapy, Serotonin, Stress , , ,

It’s dawned on me that although links in blog posts are indexed by search engines, links in comments may not be. Here’s a post to elevate links in three comments that may have escaped notice.

From A review of biological variability:

“It is my view that all researchers have a narrow focus on what they want to research, without having an over-riding paradigm in which to fit the research and its results. Janovian Primal Therapy and theory, with its focus and understanding of the three different levels of consciousness would provide for a much needed over-arching paradigm, especially in the area of mental health.”

Congratulations on an excellent podcast, Gil!
59. Gilbert Bates in “Feel It Still” // Love, Primal Therapy & the Three Levels of Consciousness

From Remembering Dr. Arthur Janov:

“You are right on. The Norcross survey, in particular, is utter crap. More than half of those “experts” surveyed were CBT therapists who knew nothing about PT and yet deemed themselves confident to judge “primal scream therapy” as “discredited.” I feel the therapy will never be understood for what it is.”

Thanks for the detailed explanation, Bruce!
The Worst Comparative Psychotherapy Study Ever Published

From How one person’s paradigms regarding stress and epigenetics impedes relevant research:

“There is of course, reversibility. Michael Meaney’s baby rats had their epigenetic changes reversed with loving maternal care. There are several compounds in development which have been shown to reverse methylation. This former physician and researcher says, “Epigenetic changes affect the level of activity of our genes. Genetic activity levels affect our emotions, beliefs, and our bodies. Exploring epigenetics and chronic illness may help us understand causes that many of us suspect have played a role in the onset and evolution of our illnesses. Furthermore, these epigenetic changes have been found to be reversible, at least some of the time, even with a seemingly indirect treatment such as psychotherapy.” Epigenetics and Chronic Illness: Why Symptoms May Be Reversible

I looked up the psychotherapy references and found this: Serotonin tranporter methylation and response to cognitive behaviour therapy in children with anxiety disorders (reversible even with CBT, the weakest therapy of all!)

And this:
MAOA gene hypomethylation in panic disorder—reversibility of an epigenetic risk pattern by psychotherapy (also CBT)

So what gives? I suspect that your researcher is working with his/her head in the sand, hamstrung by their ideological biases. If CBT can effect epigenetic changes, imagine what primal therapy can do.”

And a seven-year anniversary repost of events that affect me every day:

Reflections on my four-year anniversary of spine surgery

A mid-year selection of epigenetic topics

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Acetylcholine, Amygdala, Anterior cingulate cortex, Beliefs, Brain development, Brainstem, Cerebellum, Cerebrum, Cortisol, Dopamine, Epigenetics, Glutamate, Hippocampus, Hypothalamus, Immune system, Limbic system, Lower brain, Memory, Neurochemicals, Primal Therapy, Serotonin, Stress, Telomeres, Testosterone, Vasopressin , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Here are the most popular of the 65 posts I’ve made so far in 2018, starting from the earliest:

The pain societies instill into children

DNA methylation and childhood adversity

Epigenetic mechanisms of muscle memory

Sex-specific impacts of childhood trauma

Sleep and adult brain neurogenesis

This dietary supplement is better for depression symptoms than placebo

The epigenetic clock theory of aging

A flying human tethered to a monkey

Immune memory in the brain

The lack of oxygen’s epigenetic effects on a fetus

Dead physiological science zombified by psychological research

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Beliefs, Cerebrum, Cortisol, Neurochemicals, Stress

This 2017 Massachusetts human review described one example of psychological research continuing to misinterpret measurements for hypotheses that have been rejected for physiological research:

“The current paper is a case study examining what happens to psychological research when its foundational biological context is invalidated or superseded. The example we use is heart rate variability (HRV) as a purported measure of cardiac sympathetic outflow.

The hypotheses in question are of direct relevance to fields including biological psychology, psychophysiology, and social neuroscience that use physiological measurements to answer applied questions with broader social scientific relevance. A broad base of further evidence was amassed within human cardiac, circulatory, and autonomic physiology such that the hypotheses do not work as described.

These were important and popular metrics, they attracted appropriate scrutiny, and were subsequently discarded. The above reflects well on the scientific process within basic research. The present ensuing period of ‘life after death’ within applied research does not.

It has been widely used as a dependent variable in studies of emotion, panic, stress, attentional state, health status in psychological science.

If the criteria for publishing a scientific article is simply that the measured results resolve to be statistically significant, an unstable measurement of an unstable phenomenon is an excellent vehicle for engineering differences between groups, especially considering the substantial flexibility in modern publication practices.”

Factors facilitating the misinterpretation of heart rate variability include:

  • A 30-year chain of citations similar to what Using citations to develop beliefs instead of evidence found.
  • Measurements are convenient and inexpensive (like salivary cortisol):

    “HRV measurement lacks barriers to collection – measurement is possible during movement and activities of daily living, is easily capable of taking multiple sequential measurements without participant fatigue, and is suitable for long-term recordings. It is also inexpensive, due to multiple commercially available hardware platforms and free software analysis programs.”

  • The experimental concept is easily explained to sponsors.

https://psyarxiv.com/637ym “Dead Science in Live Psychology: A Case Study from Heart Rate Variability (HRV)”

A dietary supplement that reversed age-related hearing problems in the brainstem

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Beliefs, Brainstem, Cerebrum, Epigenetics, Glutamate, Lower brain, Memory, Neurochemicals , , , , ,

This 2018 Nevada rodent study was on acetyl-L-carnitine’s action in the brainstem:

“We examined age-related changes in the efficiency of synaptic transmission at the calyx of Held, from juvenile adults (1-month old) and late middle-age (18- to 21-month old) mice. The calyx of Held synapse has been exploited as a model for understanding excitation-secretion coupling in central glutamatergic neurons, and is specialized for high-frequency transmission as part of a timing circuit for sound localization.

Our observations suggest that during aging, there is neuronal cell loss in the MNTB [Medial nucleus of the trapezoid body, a collection of brainstem nuclei in an area that’s the first recipient of sound and equilibrium information], similar to previous reports. In remaining synapses of the MNTB, we observed severe impairments in transmission timing and SV [synaptic vesicle] recycling, resulting in timing errors and increased synaptic depression in the calyx of Held synapse. These defects reduce the efficacy of this synapse to encode temporally sensitive information and are likely to result in diminished sound localization.

We orally administered ALCAR for 1 month and found that it reversed transmission defects at the calyx of Held synapse in the older mice.

These results support the concept that facilitators of mitochondrial metabolism and antioxidants may be an extremely effective therapy to increase synaptic function and restore short-term plasticity in aged brains, and provide for the first time a clear mechanism of action for ALCAR on activity-dependent synaptic transmission.“

Human brainstem research is neglected, as noted by Advance science by including emotion in research. Evidence from such research doesn’t play well with beliefs in the popular models and memes of human cerebral dominance.

Do you know any “late middle-age” people who have obvious auditory and synaptic deficits? What if some of the neurobiological causes of what’s wrong in their brains could be “reversed by ALCAR?”

Before using this study as a guide, however, I asked the study’s researchers about the “daily dose of ~2.9 g/kg/d.” An equivalent for a 70 kg human is (2.9 g x 70) x .081 = 16 grams daily, compared with the 500 mg to 1 g dietary supplement dose of acetyl-L-carnitine.

The study’s corresponding coauthor replied:

“This is indeed much larger than that normally consumed by humans via dietary supplementation. We are currently working to determine the effective ‘minimal’ dose of ALCAR and alpha lipoic acid, to better assist guidelines for human application of this supplement.”

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323941877_Age-related_defects_in_short-term_plasticity_are_reversed_by_acetyl-L-carnitine_at_the_mouse_calyx_of_Held “Age-related defects in short-term plasticity are reversed by acetyl-L-carnitine at the mouse calyx of Held”

Resiliency in stress responses

gettingwell4 < 0 Detracted from science, Amygdala, Anterior cingulate cortex, Beliefs, Brain development, Brainstem, Cerebrum, Cortisol, Dopamine, Epigenetics, Glutamate, Hippocampus, Hypothalamus, Limbic system, Locus coeruleus, Lower brain, Memory, Neurochemicals, Oxytocin, Primal Therapy, Serotonin, Stress, Thalamus , , , , , , , , ,

This 2018 US Veterans Administration review subject was resiliency and stress responses:

“Neurobiological and behavioral responses to stress are highly variable. Exposure to a similar stressor can lead to heterogeneous outcomes — manifesting psychopathology in one individual, but having minimal effect, or even enhancing resilience, in another.

We highlight aspects of stress response modulation related to early life development and epigenetics, selected neurobiological and neurochemical systems, and a number of emotional, cognitive, psychosocial, and behavioral factors important in resilience.”

The review cited studies I’ve previously curated:

There were two things I didn’t understand about this review. The first was why the paper isn’t freely available. It’s completely paid for by the US taxpayer, and no copyright is claimed. I recommend contacting the authors for a copy.

The second was why the VA hasn’t participated in either animal or human follow-on studies to the 2015 Northwestern University GABAergic mechanisms regulated by miR-33 encode state-dependent fear. That study’s relevance to PTSD, this review’s subject, and the VA’s mission is too important to ignore. For example:

“Fear-inducing memories can be state dependent, meaning that they can best be retrieved if the brain states at encoding and retrieval are similar.

“It’s difficult for therapists to help these patients,” Radulovic said, “because the patients themselves can’t remember their traumatic experiences that are the root cause of their symptoms.”

The findings imply that in response to traumatic stress, some individuals, instead of activating the glutamate system to store memories, activate the extra-synaptic GABA system and form inaccessible traumatic memories.”

I curated the research in A study that provided evidence for basic principles of Primal Therapy. These researchers have published several papers since then. Here are the abstracts from three of them:

Experimental Methods for Functional Studies of microRNAs in Animal Models of Psychiatric Disorders

“Pharmacological treatments for psychiatric illnesses are often unsuccessful. This is largely due to the poor understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying these disorders. We are particularly interested in elucidating the mechanism of affective disorders rooted in traumatic experiences.

To date, the research of mental disorders in general has focused on the causal role of individual genes and proteins, an approach that is inconsistent with the proposed polygenetic nature of these disorders. We recently took an alternative direction, by establishing the role of miRNAs in the coding of stress-related, fear-provoking memories.

Here we describe in detail our work on the role of miR-33 in state-dependent learning, a process implicated in dissociative amnesia, wherein memories formed in a certain brain state can best be retrieved if the brain is in the same state. We present the specific experimental approaches we apply to study the role of miRNAs in this model and demonstrate that miR-33 regulates the susceptibility to state-dependent learning induced by inhibitory neurotransmission.”

Neurobiological mechanisms of state-dependent learning

“State-dependent learning (SDL) is a phenomenon relating to information storage and retrieval restricted to discrete states. While extensively studied using psychopharmacological approaches, SDL has not been subjected to rigorous neuroscientific study.

Here we present an overview of approaches historically used to induce SDL, and highlight some of the known neurobiological mechanisms, in particular those related to inhibitory neurotransmission and its regulation by microRNAs (miR).

We also propose novel cellular and circuit mechanisms as contributing factors. Lastly, we discuss the implications of advancing our knowledge on SDL, both for most fundamental processes of learning and memory as well as for development and maintenance of psychopathology.”

Neurobiological correlates of state-dependent context fear

“Retrieval of fear memories can be state-dependent, meaning that they are best retrieved if the brain states at encoding and retrieval are similar. Such states can be induced by activating extrasynaptic γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptors (GABAAR) with the broad α-subunit activator gaboxadol. However, the circuit mechanisms and specific subunits underlying gaboxadol’s effects are not well understood.

Here we show that gaboxadol induces profound changes of local and network oscillatory activity, indicative of discoordinated hippocampal-cortical activity, that were accompanied by robust and long-lasting state-dependent conditioned fear. Episodic memories typically are hippocampus-dependent for a limited period after learning, but become cortex-dependent with the passage of time.

In contrast, state-dependent memories continued to rely on hippocampal GABAergic mechanisms for memory retrieval. Pharmacological approaches with α- subunit-specific agonists targeting the hippocampus implicated the prototypic extrasynaptic subunits (α4) as the mediator of state-dependent conditioned fear.

Together, our findings suggest that continued dependence on hippocampal rather than cortical mechanisms could be an important feature of state-dependent memories that contributes to their conditional retrieval.”

Here’s an independent 2017 Netherlands/UC San Diego review that should bring these researchers’ efforts to the VA’s attention:

MicroRNAs in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

“Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric disorder that can develop following exposure to or witnessing of a (potentially) threatening event. A critical issue is to pinpoint the (neuro)biological mechanisms underlying the susceptibility to stress-related disorder such as PTSD, which develops in the minority of ~15% of individuals exposed to trauma.

Over the last few years, a first wave of epigenetic studies has been performed in an attempt to identify the molecular underpinnings of the long-lasting behavioral and mental effects of trauma exposure. The potential roles of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) such as microRNAs (miRNAs) in moderating or mediating the impact of severe stress and trauma are increasingly gaining attention. To date, most studies focusing on the roles of miRNAs in PTSD have, however, been completed in animals, using cross-sectional study designs and focusing almost exclusively on subjects with susceptible phenotypes.

Therefore, there is a strong need for new research comprising translational and cross-species approaches that use longitudinal designs for studying trajectories of change contrasting susceptible and resilient subjects. The present review offers a comprehensive overview of available studies of miRNAs in PTSD and discusses the current challenges, pitfalls, and future perspectives of this field.”

Here’s a 2017 Netherlands human study that similarly merits the US Veterans Administration’s attention:

Circulating miRNA associated with posttraumatic stress disorder in a cohort of military combat veterans

“Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects many returning combat veterans, but underlying biological mechanisms remain unclear. In order to compare circulating micro RNA (miRNA) of combat veterans with and without PTSD, peripheral blood from 24 subjects was collected following deployment, and isolated miRNA was sequenced.

PTSD was associated with 8 differentially expressed miRNA. Pathway analysis shows that PTSD is related to the axon guidance and Wnt signaling pathways, which work together to support neuronal development through regulation of growth cones. PTSD is associated with miRNAs that regulate biological functions including neuronal activities, suggesting that they play a role in PTSD symptomatology.”

See the below comments for reasons why I downgraded this review’s rating.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11920-018-0887-x “Stress Response Modulation Underlying the Psychobiology of Resilience” (not freely available)

Faith-tainted epigenetics

gettingwell4 < 0 Detracted from science, Beliefs, Cerebrum, Epigenetics, Neurochemicals, Serotonin , ,

This 2018 Loma Linda review subject was epigenetic interventions for aging:

“Epigenomic markers of aging, global DNA hypomethylation and promoter-specific hypermethylation may be engendered by iron and HCys [homocysteine] retention.

MiR-29/p53 axis may reverse age-related methylomic shifts, stabilizing both the genome and the epigenome, therefore removing a major risk factor of neurodegeneration. Lowering iron and HCys overload can be accomplished via chelation, blood donation and maintaining an adequate omega-6/omega-3 ratio.”

Sometimes it’s difficult to detect researchers’ biases. If a reader didn’t know about the funding sponsor’s mission:

“Each day we seek to extend the teaching and healing ministry of Jesus Christ”

they may view this paper as unbiased rather than as a directed narrative.

Consider the sponsor’s influence from the perspective of someone seeking treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. If a doctor in this review sponsor’s hospital system recommended chelation treatment, hope would be generated for the patient. Adopting the doctor’s belief about the treatment, though, would be contrary to other evidence per this review:

“In 2008, the NIH chelation trial stopped enrolling patients, approximately two years early.

There is no indication for exposing patients with dementia to the risks of chelation therapy because current chelators cannot help them.”

After reading another review that had this sponsor – The lack of oxygen’s epigenetic effects on a fetus – which also reflected the influence of the sponsor’s biases, and had a directed narrative that ignored evidence contradicting the narrative, and involved storytelling, I’m done curating any paper sponsored by this institution.

http://www.nrronline.org/downloadpdf.asp?issn=1673-5374;year=2018;volume=13;issue=4;spage=635;epage=636;aulast=Sfera;type=2 “Epigenetic interventions for brain rejuvenation: anchoring age-related transposons” (click the pdf button)

A flying human tethered to a monkey

gettingwell4 5+ stars Premium, Beliefs, Cerebrum, Epigenetics, Limbic system, Lower brain , , ,

Ponder this drone photo of “a flying human tethered to a monkey” ground drawing made over 1,000 years ago as reported by National Geographic and excerpted by the Daily Star:
Flying human tethered to a monkey

1. Aren’t the geoglyph and its description pretty good expressions of our evolved condition? Especially since it’s the interpretation of people who lived more a millennium ago?

With so many information sources freely available now, though, one couldn’t successfully argue that the ancients understood the world better than we do. Our understanding comes from our “flying human” time and efforts, without which we’re as ignorant as our “monkey.”

2. A few aspects of the current comprehension of the differences between our two pictured primates are in Genetic imprinting, sleep, and parent-offspring conflict:

“I remain skeptical of a tendency to ascribe most modern woes to incongruence between our evolved nature and western cultural practices. We did not evolve to be happy or healthy but to leave genetic descendants, and an undue emphasis on mismatch risks conflating health and fitness [genetic rather than physical fitness].”

Our “flying human” can make happiness and health choices that our “monkey” can’t:

“Our genetic adaptations often try to fool us into doing things that enhance fitness at costs to our happiness.

Our genes do not care about us and we should have no compunction about fooling them to deliver benefits without serving their ends.

Contraception, to take one obvious example, allows those who choose childlessness to enjoy the pleasures of sexual activity without the fitness-enhancing risk of conception.”

3. Another aspect of our two primates’ differences is illuminated in a reference to A study of DNA methylation and age:

“Aging is not and cannot be programmed. Instead, aging is a continuation of developmental growth, driven by genetic pathways.

Genetic programs determine developmental growth and the onset of reproduction. When these programs are completed, they are not switched off.

Aging has no purpose (neither for individuals nor for group), no intention. Nature does not select for quasi-programs. It selects for robust developmental growth.”

The epigenetic clock theory of aging cited the same author, and modified his point to say:

“The proposed epigenetic clock theory of ageing views biological ageing as an unintended consequence of both developmental programmes and maintenance programmes.”

Aging decisions are examples of our “flying human” making choices that aren’t available to our “monkey” concerning the structure, direction, and duration of our one precious life.

“What are you doing to reverse epigenetic processes and realize what you want? Do you have ideas and/or behaviors that interfere with taking constructive actions to change your phenotype?”

The epigenetic clock theory of aging

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Beliefs, Brain development, Cerebellum, Cerebrum, Epigenetics, Lower brain, Memory, Stress, Telomeres , , , , , , ,

My 400th curation is a 2018 US/UK paper by coauthors of Using an epigenetic clock to distinguish cellular aging from senescence. They reviewed the current state of epigenetic clock research, and proposed a new theory of aging:

“The proposed epigenetic clock theory of ageing views biological ageing as an unintended consequence of both developmental programmes and maintenance programmes, the molecular footprints of which give rise to DNAm [DNA methylation] age estimators.

It is best to interpret epigenetic age estimates as a higher-order property of a large number of CpGs much in the same way that the temperature of a gas is a higher-order property that reflects the average kinetic energy of the underlying molecules. This interpretation does not imply that DNAm age simply measures entropy across the entire genome.

To date, the most effective in vitro intervention against epigenetic ageing is achieved through expression of Yamanaka factors, which convert somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells, thereby completely resetting the epigenetic clock. In vivo, haematopoietic stem cell therapy resets the epigenetic age of blood of the recipient to that of the donor.

Future epidemiological studies should consider other sources of DNA (for example, buccal cells), because more powerful estimates of organismal age can be obtained by evaluating multiple tissues. Other types of epigenetic modifications such as adenine methylation or histone modifications may lend themselves for developing epigenetic age estimators.”


https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-018-0004-3 “DNA methylation-based biomarkers and the epigenetic clock theory of ageing” (not freely available)

I curated four other papers cited in this review:

Do you want your quality of life to be under or over this curve?

What are you doing to reverse epigenetic processes and realize what you want?

  • Do you have ideas and/or behaviors that interfere with taking constructive actions to change your phenotype?
  • If you aren’t doing anything, are you honest with yourself about feelings of helplessness?
  • Do your beliefs in fate, or in technology, or in divine interventions justify inactions?

Manufacturing PTSD evidence with machine learning

gettingwell4 < 0 Detracted from science, Beliefs, Brain development, Cerebrum, Cortisol, Epigenetics, Hypothalamus, Limbic system, Memory, Neurochemicals, Stress

What would you do if you were a scientist who had strong beliefs that weren’t borne out by experimental evidence?

Would you be honest with yourself about the roots of the beliefs? Would you attempt to discover why the beliefs were necessary for you, and what feelings were associated with the beliefs?

Instead of the above, the researchers of this 2017 New York human study reworked negative findings of two of the coauthors’ 2008 study until it fit their beliefs:

“The neuroendocrine response contributes to an accurate predictive signal of PTSD trajectory of response to trauma. Further, cortisol provides a stable predictive signal when measured in conjunction with other related neuroendocrine and clinical sources of information.

Further, this work provides a methodology that is relevant across psychiatry and other behavioral sciences that transcend the limitations of commonly utilized data analytic tools to match the complexity of the current state of theory in these fields.”

1. The limitations section included:

“It is important to note that ML [machine learning]-based network models are an inherently exploratory data analytic method, and as such might be seen as ‘hypotheses generating’. While such an approach is informative in situations where complex relationships cannot be proposed and tested a priori, such an approach also presents with inherent limitations as a high number of relationships are estimated simultaneously introducing a non-trivial probability of false discovery.”

2. Sex-specific impacts of childhood trauma summarized why cortisol isn’t a reliable biological measurement:

“Findings are dependent upon variance in extenuating factors, including but not limited to, different measurements of:

  • early adversity,
  • age of onset,
  • basal cortisol levels, as well as
  • trauma forms and subtypes, and
  • presence and severity of psychopathology symptomology.”

Although this study’s authors knew or should have known that review’s information, cortisol was the study’s foundation, and beliefs in its use as a biomarker were defended.

3. What will it take for childhood trauma research to change paradigms? described why self-reports of childhood trauma can NEVER provide direct evidence for trauma during the top three periods when humans are most sensitive to and affected by trauma:

“The basic problem prohibiting the CTQ (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire) from discovering likely most of the subjects’ historical traumatic experiences that caused epigenetic changes is that these experiences predated the CTQ’s developmental starting point.

Self-reports were – at best – evidence of experiences after age three, distinct from the experience-dependent epigenetic changes since conception.”

Yet the researchers’ beliefs in the Trauma History Questionnaire’s capability to provide evidence for early childhood traumatic experiences allowed them to make such self-reports an important part of this study’s findings, for example:

“The reduced cortisol response in the ER [emergency room] was dependent on report of early childhood trauma exposure.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/tp201738 “Utilization of machine learning for prediction of post-traumatic stress: a re-examination of cortisol in the prediction and pathways to non-remitting PTSD”

What are the chances?

gettingwell4 2-3 stars Required further work, Beliefs, Cerebrum ,

This 2018 UC Davis anthropology study was on dice changes over two centuries:

“In Roman times, many dice were visibly lopsided..It did not matter what the objects were made of (metal, clay, bone, antler and ivory), or whether they were precisely symmetrical or consistent in size or shape, because, like the weather, rolls were predetermined by gods or other supernatural elements.

Dice, like many material objects, reflect a lot about people’s changing worldviews, Eerkens said. In this case, we believe it follows changing ideas about chance and fate.”

Think of a significant event in your life. Was it brought about by:

  1. Fate?
  2. Karma, divine intervention?
  3. A prayer, belief, placebo-effect process?
  4. Randomness?
  5. A coin-flip, card-draw, dice-roll decision process?
  6. A weighted-probability decision process?
  7. Chosen behavior, thoughts, and feelings?
  8. Unconscious behavior, thoughts, and feelings?
  9. Culturally-guided motivations?
  10. Non-arbitrary influences of other parties?

Which one or more of these factors would you now prefer to have been involved?

https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/it-not-how-you-play-game-how-dice-were-made “It’s Not How You Play the Game, but How the Dice Were Made”

The impact of the last snowflake

gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Beliefs, Cerebrum

Was the recent Swiss avalanche’s cause the last, triggering snowflake, or the billions of snowflakes before it?

There’s been a slight increase in the number of PNAS studies that included the “catastrophic” search word from October 2016 to mid-January 2018 compared to the January 2014 to mid-April 2015 period referenced in How well can catastrophes be predicted?.

What are the drivers?

Or is the main driver something else?

Science and technology hijacked by woo

gettingwell4 < 0 Detracted from science, Beliefs, Cerebrum

I’m an avid reader of science articles, abstracts, studies, and reviews. I tried a free subscription to Singularity Hub for a few weeks last month because it seemed to be a suitable source of articles on both science and technology.

I unsubscribed after being disappointed by aspects of science and technology hijacked almost on a daily basis into the realm of woo. Discovering scientific truths and realizing technologies is inspiring enough to stand on its own. It’s sufficiently interesting to publish well-written articles on the process and results.

I was dismayed that the website didn’t host a feedback mechanism for the authors’ articles. We shield ourselves from information incongruent with our beliefs. It’s a problem when a publisher of science and technology articles similarly disallows non-confirming evidence as a matter of policy.

An article may or may not advance knowledge of the subject, and Singularity Hub enables author hubris in presenting their views as the final word on the subject. Directing readers elsewhere for discussion is self-defeating in that every publisher’s goals include keeping visitors on their website as long as possible.

Here’s my feedback on two articles that inappropriately bent reality.

Regarding What Is It That Makes Humans Unique?:

“This trait [symbolic abstract thinking] not only gives us the ability to communicate symbolically, it also allows us to think symbolically, by allowing us to represent all kinds of symbols (including physical and social relationships) in our minds, independent of their presence in the physical world. As a result, internal associations of novel kinds become possible.”

Why limit discussion of our capability for symbolic representations? Other features to explore are:

  1. Aren’t beliefs also products of symbolic abstract thinking?
  2. What attributes of human behavior provide evidence for hopes and beliefs as symbolic representations?
  3. What’s the evolved functional significance that benefits humans of using symbolic abstract thinking to develop hopes and beliefs?

“Our revolutionary traits stand out even more when we take a cosmic perspective. We are not only in the universe, but the universe is also within us. Our brains, as an extension of the universe, are now being used to understand themselves.”

This article should be written well enough to inspire without resorting to unevidenced assertions about revolutions, the cosmos, and the timing of brain functionality.

“Some of us possess higher consciousness than others. The question that we now have to ask ourselves is, how do we cultivate higher consciousness, structural building, and symbolic abstract thinking among the masses?”

What’s the purpose of steering an evolution topic into elitism?

How a Machine That Can Make Anything Would Change Everything received >53,000 views compared with <5,000 views of the above article. This was an indicator that readers of Singularity Hub are relatively more interested in the possible implications of future technology than those of our past biological evolution. Why?

“If nanofabricators are ever built, the systems and structure of the world as we know them were built to solve a problem that will no longer exist.”

We are to believe that we’ll soon have the worldwide solution to problems in food supply, energy supply, medicine availability, income, knowledge – all that’s needed for survival? Should we develop hopes that technology will be our all-providing savior? Hope sells, without a doubt, but why would Singularity Hub mix that in with science?

This article reminded me of the chip-in-the-brain article referenced in Differing approaches to a life wasted on beliefs. Both articles seemingly appealed to future prospects, but the hope aspect showed that the appeals were actually reactions to the past.

If we individually address the impacts of past threats to survival – that include beliefs about future survival – each of us can break out of these self-reinforcing, life-wasting loops. Otherwise, an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior are stuck in reacting to their history, with hopes and beliefs being among the many symptoms.

“Human history will be forever divided in two. We may well be living in the Dark Age before this great dawn. Or it may never happen. But James Burke, just as he did over forty years ago, has faith.”

Is it inspiring that the person mentioned has had a forty-year career of selling beliefs in technology?

Yes, future technologies have promise. Authors can write articles that provide developments without soiling the promise with woo.

This post has somehow become a target for spammers, and I’ve disabled comments. Readers can comment on other posts and indicate that they want their comment to apply here, and I’ll re-enable comments.

The pain societies instill into children

gettingwell4 2-3 stars Required further work, Beliefs, Cerebrum, Epigenetics, Memory, Primal Therapy, Stress , , , , ,

The human subjects of this 2017 Swiss study had previously been intentionally traumatized by Swiss society:

“Swiss former indentured child laborers (Verdingkinder) were removed as children from their families by the authorities due to different reasons (poverty, being born out of wedlock) and were placed to live and work on farms. This was a practice applied until the 1950s and many of the Verdingkinder were subjected to childhood trauma and neglect during the indentured labor.

DNA methylation modifications indicated experiment-wide significant associations with the following complex posttraumatic symptom domains: dissociation, tension reduction behavior and dysfunctional sexual behavior.”


https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13104-017-3082-y “A pilot investigation on DNA methylation modifications associated with complex posttraumatic symptoms in elderly traumatized in childhood”

Imagine being taken away from your family during early childhood for no other reason than your parents weren’t married.

Consider just a few of the painful feelings such a child had to deal with then and ever since:

  • I’m unloved.
  • Alone.
  • No one can help me.

Imagine some of the ways a child had to adapt during their formative years because of this undeserved punishment:

  • How fulfilling it would be to believe that they were loved, even by someone they couldn’t see, touch, or hear.
  • How fulfilling it would be to get attention from someone, anyone.
  • How a child became conditioned to do things by themself without asking for help.

The study described a minute set of measurements of the subjects’ traumatic experiences and their consequential symptoms. The researchers tried to group this tiny sample of the subjects’ symptoms into a new invented category.

Another example was provided in Is IQ an adequate measure of the quality of a young man’s life?:

“During this time period [between 1955 and 1990], because private adoptions were prohibited by Swedish law, children were taken into institutional care by the municipalities shortly after birth and adopted at a median age of 6 mo, with very few children adopted after 12 mo of age.”

Swedish society deemed local institutional care the initial destination for disenfranchised infants, regardless of whether suitable families were willing and able to adopt the infants. What happened to infants who weren’t adopted by age 1?

Did Swedish society really need any further research to know that an adoptive family’s care would be better for a child than living in an institution?

It’s hard to recognize when our own thoughts, feelings, and behavior provide evidence of childhood pain that’s still with us.

Let’s not hope and believe that the societies we live in will resolve adverse effects of childhood trauma its members caused. Other people may guide us, but each of us has to individually get our life back:

“What is the point of life if we cannot feel and love others? Without feeling, life becomes empty and sterile.

It, above all, loses its meaning.“

Every society has its horror stories. People who have reached some degree of honesty about their early lives and concomitant empathy for others can document these terrible circumstances and events.

Have traumatic effects on children from societal policies ceased?