Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 27, 2026

A Computer-Based Platform for Aiding Clinicians in Eating Disorder Analysis and Diagnosis
Published on: May 10, 2022
The plasticity of development: how knowledge of epigenetics may advance understanding of eating disorders
Michael Strober1, Tara Peris, Howard Steiger
1Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles; Stewart & Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA, Los Angeles, California.
Objective:
To depict the processes through which animals and human beings engage their environment in continuously evolving states of conflict and cooperation.
Method:
Descriptive literature review.
Results:
Life history outcomes are more relative than they are absolute. Genetic variations play a crucial role, but heavily influencing behavioral outcomes, psychopathology included, are external cues that epigenetically remodel DNA along experience-dependent signaling pathways. The result is phenotypes that either optimize adjustment, or constrain it.
Discussion:
Knowledge of epigenetic mechanisms may help shed new light on the origin of maturational phenotypes underlying eating disorders and why adjusting treatments to these realities warrants our attention.
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