From animal to human epigenetics

Abstract Converging evidence highlights the role of environmentally-driven epigenetic modifications in shaping developmental trajectories, influencing personalized expression of genetic information and thus modulating vulnerability and resiliency to psychiatric diseases. The most influential epigenetic human studies are predicated on significant experimental findings in animals that have shown that brain development and function are sculpted by very early or even ancestral experiences. Animal models allow to prospectively manipulate under controlled conditions the exposures to aversive or permissive environment and to evaluate immediate, long-term and transgenerational consequences on candidate gene expression and behavior. This chapter reports animal studies focused on the role of postnatal maternal care in inducing stable individual differences in the offspring, and on the consequences of the exposure to aversive and permissive environments for neurobiology and behavior.