“What a change you have made!” “You don’t seem the same.” They are some of the phrases that adolescents hear most frequently. Spanish scientists from the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) have found a scientific explanation forthe changes in behaviors and knowledge that we experience from birth to adolescence.
An article published in the magazineSciencewith the participation of Manel Esteller, Director of the Cancer Epigenetics and Biology Program of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), reveals thatthe frontal cortex(the part of the brain responsible for behavior and the acquisition of new information) of people undergoes a significant change from birth to the end of adolescence:the epigenome is transformed.
The study was based on the analysis of the epigenome of newborns, 16-year-olds, and 25 and 50-year-old adults in the United States and Catalonia. The epigenome is nothing else it is theset of chemical signals that are responsible for turning on or off the genes of our DNA. One of these epigenetic signals, the methylation of genetic material, progressively increases until the end of adolescence and entry into adulthood. “The results of the study reveal that DNA methylation is key in the formation of communication spaces between neurons (synapses)”, explained Esteller, who ensures that DNA methylation in neurons is different from that of other cells of our body. “If the normal is called 5-mCG, this is called 5-MCH: this is like putting an open or closed accent on a word, in this case on a gene, to change its meaning,” he says.
This discovery may have aprofound importance in understanding brain biologybecause, in addition toexplain the plasticity of this organ in the face of learning and life experiences, can be decisive in understanding the causes of behavioral disturbances and psychiatric illnesses. Now, it is necessary to investigate whether small alterations in the DNA methylation program in postnatal development could be related to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism or schizophrenia.
