Little work has attempted to meaningfully unite these two lines of thought, with a few notable exceptions.[1–4] A groundbreaking series of studies by Meaney and colleagues nearly a decade ago suggested the potential import of epigenetic mechanisms for explaining how environmental exposures “get under the skin”.[3,4] Although these studies were based on animal models, they offered the potential for understanding how exogenous environmental factors shape population health and disease. Evidence that epigenetic modifications follow environmental exposure and may explain differences in gene expression that accompany such exposures have made epigenetic research a natural point of convergence for population health scientists and neurobiologists interested in the etiology of complex mental diseases. Therefore, epigenetic mechanisms may help bridge the gap in our understanding about the role of environmental and genetic influences on psychopathology and have been greeted with suitable enthusiasm.[5]
