Epigenetic alterations and stress among new mothers and neonates in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A biocultural investigation of the intergenerational effects of war

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It has been known for decades that a mother's health impacts the health of her children. Moreover, it is known that a mother's experiences while she is pregnant (i.e., peri-natal experiences) affect her children's health, both when they are born and throughout their lives. What is unknown is how information about the mother's health is transmitted to the developing fetus and, furthermore, how this information impacts children's health throughout their lives. This project is one of the first to test the possibility that extreme environmental or psychosocial stressors may result in altered health outcomes, possibly in a heritable, multigenerational manner. Specifically, the investigators will determine if epigenetic changes, which are inherited changes in gene expression that do not affect the underlying DNA sequence, translate the impact of stress and trauma to mothers into altered health outcomes in newborns. The investigators are working in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where ongoing civil war and the use of rape as a weapon has created one of the most stressful and traumatic environments for women on the planet. Culturally relevant measures of stress will be developed through extensive interviews with mothers and these data will be tested against patterns of epigenetic variation detected in DNA samples collected from mothers and their newborns. Cutting-edge DNA sequencing techniques will be used to generate the largest epigenetic dataset ever on a unique set of mother-newborn samples. Investigators will look for a connection between maternal stress and newborn health outcome that is mediated by epigenetic alterations in gene expression. Ongoing research in other laboratories indicate that it may be possible to devise treatment to reverse epigenetic alterations made in response to stress exposures, which has profound implications for our ability to address some of society's most taxing problems. The proposed study is the first to investigate epigenetic alterations (changes in gene expression that do not change the underlying DNA sequence) in humans as a possible response to peri-natal stress and trauma to mothers that results in altered health outcomes in offspring. The idea that violence and stress exposure can create changes in newborn health outcome, presumably through changes in gene expression, has immediate relevance to global public health issues. Seen from the broadest perspective, this proposal and similar research has profound implications for our understanding and attempts to ameliorate society's most vexing problems, including multigenerational cycles of violence, abuse and poverty. The proposed research will improve our understanding of the link between stress and health in humans and has broad implications for the increasing prevalence of stress-related disorders in the United States. The project takes a broad, interdisciplinary perspective that integrates human genetics, cultural anthropology and sociology, biology and psychology, as well as political realities and public health policy. Furthermore, a graduate training program has been developed in collaboration with the University of Florida's Scientific Thinking and Education Partnership in which anthropology students will act as production assistants to develop communication materials to disseminate research results to the general public. Students will receive training in news writing, print layout, and video production to prepare them to better communicate their research to a non-science audience.