Behavioral epigenetics is the field of study examining the role of epigenetics in shaping animal and human behavior. It seeks to explain how nurture shapes nature, where nature refers to biological heredity and nurture refers to virtually everything that occurs during the life-span (e.g., social-experience, diet and nutrition, and exposure to toxins). Behavioral epigenetics attempts to provide a framework for understanding how the expression of genes is influenced by experiences and the environment to produce individual differences in behaviour, cognition, personality, and mental health.
Epigenetic gene regulation involves changes other than to the sequence of DNA and includes changes to histones (proteins around which DNA is wrapped) and DNA methylation. These epigenetic changes can influence the growth of neurons in the developing brain as well as modify the activity of neurons in the adult brain. Together, these epigenetic changes in neuron structure and function are thought to have an influence on behavior.
In biology, and specifically genetics, epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene activity which are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence; the term can also be used to describe the study of stable, long-term alterations in the transcriptional potential of a cell that are not necessarily heritable. Genetic activity can be influenced by environmental factors, as well as parenting styles, diet and even social interactions.
Examples of mechanisms that produce such changes are DNA methylation and histone modification, both alter how genes are expressed without changing the underlying DNA sequence and both are also essential for learning and memory. Gene expression can be controlled through the action of repressor proteins that attach to silencer regions of the DNA.
DNA methylation turns a gene "off" â it results in the inability of genetic information to be read from DNA; removing the methyl tag can turn the gene back "on".
Histone modification changes the way that DNA is packaged into chromosomes. These changes impact how genes are expressed.<nowiki>