The paradox of care in behavioral epigenetics: Constructing early-life adversity in the lab.
The paradox of care in behavioral epigenetics: Constructing early-life adversity in the lab.
复制标题
行为表观遗传学中的护理悖论：在实验室中构建早期生活的逆境。
DOI：
10.1057/s41292-017-0090-z
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发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
1.6
通讯作者：
Lappé,Martine
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lappé,Martine
许多表观遗传学研究集中在压力、创伤和护理如何成为分子体现，在不改变DNA序列的情况下影响基因表达，并产生影响个体、后代和后代的健康和行为的变化。这篇文章描述了护理如何成为早期生活逆境表观遗传效应研究的中心。我的分析基于在美国行为表观遗传学实验室进行的两年人种学研究。在女性主义理论和科学社会学传统的基础上，我记录了如何通过研究样本、实验方案和模式生物实验中的行为终点来制定护理。我的发现指出了研究者对数据的关注和他们对逆境的测量之间的紧张关系，逆境是母亲互动、忽视和虐待形式的离散变量。我认为，这些矛盾表明了一种“关怀悖论”，它正在积极地塑造表观遗传知识的产生方式及其对社会的影响。我的分析表明，实验室里的决定如何塑造了对早期生活经历如何影响健康的新理解，对我们对母亲和孕妇的期望产生了重大影响。这项研究表明，表观遗传学对健康和发展的更复杂解释同时也受到实验室护理实践的制约。
Many epigenetic studies focus on how stress, trauma, and care become molecularly embodied, affect gene expression without changing DNA sequence, and produce changes that influence the health and behavior of individuals, their offspring, and future generations. This article describes how care has become central in research on the epigenetic effects of early-life adversity. My analysis draws on two years of ethnographic research in a behavioral epigenetics laboratory in the United States. Building on traditions in feminist theory and the sociology of science, I document how care is enacted with research samples, experimental protocols, and behavioral endpoints in experiments with model organisms. My findings point to tensions between researchers’ care for the data and their measurement of adversity as a discrete variable in the form of maternal interaction, neglect, and abuse. I argue that these tensions suggest a “paradox of care” that is actively shaping how epigenetic knowledge is produced and its impacts in society. My analysis shows how decisions in the lab are shaping new understandings of how early-life experiences influence health, with significant impacts on our expectations of mothers and pregnant women. This study suggests that the more complex explanations of health and development promised by epigenetics are simultaneously constructed and constrained by caring practices in the laboratory.