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When confronted by a range of violent actions perpetrated by lone individuals, contemporary society exhibits a constant tendency to react in terms of helpless, even perplexed horror. Seeking explanations for the apparently inexplicable, commentators often hurry to declare the perpetrators as “evil”. This question is not restricted to individuals: history has repeatedly demonstrated how groups and even entire nations can embark on a criminal plan united by the conviction that they were fighting for a good and just cause. Which circumstances occasioned such actions? What was their motivation? Applying a number of historical, scientific and social-scientific approaches to this question, this study produces an integrative portrait of the reasons for human behavior and advances a number of different interpretations for their genesis. The book makes clear the extent to which we live in socially-constructed realities in which we cling for dear life to a range of conceptions and beliefs which can all too easily fall apart in situations of crisis.
There are now compelling human epidemiological and animal experimental data that indicate the risk of developing adult-onset complex diseases and neurological disorders are influenced by persistent epigenetic adaptations in response to prenatal and early postnatal exposures to environmental factors. Epigenetics refers to heritable changes in gene function that occur without a change in the sequence of the DNA. The main components of the epigenetic code are DNA methylation, histone modifications, and non-coding RNAs. The epigenetic programs are established as stem cell differentiate during embryogenesis, and they are normally faithfully reproduced during mitosis. Moreover, they can also be ma...
NA methylation has bewildered molecular biologists since Hotchkiss discovered it almost six decades ago (Hotchkiss RDJ. Biol Cem 1948; 175:315-332). The fact that the chemical structure of our D genome consists of two components that are covalently bound, the genetic information that is replicated by the DNA replication machinery ana DNA methylation that is maintainea by independent enzymatic machinery, has redictably stimulated the imagination and curiosity of generations of mo Edular biologists. An obvious question was whether DNA methylation was a bearer of additional information to the genetic information and what was the nature of this information? It was tempting to speculate that DNA ...
Environmental Experience and Plasticity of the Developing Brain goes beyond the genetic basis of neurodevelopment. Chapters illuminate the external factors that can dramatically impact the brain early in life and, consequently, the eventual accomplishment of developmental milestones and the construction of adult behavior and personality. Authored and edited by leaders in this rapidly growing field, Environmental Experience and Plasticity of the Developing Brain not only surveys preexisting literature on the effects of environment versus genetics, but also discusses more recent studies on the impacts of neurodevelopment in terms of maternal stimulation, environmental enrichment and sensory de...
In this fully revised and updated second edition of An Anthropology of Biomedicine, authors Lock and Nguyen introduce biomedicine from an anthropological perspective, exploring the entanglement of material bodies with history, environment, culture, and politics. Drawing on historical and ethnographic work, the book critiques the assumption made by the biological sciences of a universal human body that can be uniformly standardized. It focuses on the ways in which the application of biomedical technologies brings about radical changes to societies at large based on socioeconomic inequalities and ethical disputes, and develops and integrates the theory that the human body in health and illness...
This book offers a multidisciplinary look at the much-debated concept of “personalized medicine”. By combining a humanistic and a scientific approach, the book builds up a multidimensional way to understand the limits and potentialities of a personalized approach in medicine and healthcare. The book reflects on personalized medicine and complex diseases, the relationship between personalized medicine and the new bio-technologies, personalized medicine and personalized nutrition, and on some ethical, political, economic, and social implications of personalized medicine. This volume is of interest to researchers from several disciplines including philosophy, bio-medicine, and the social sciences. Chapter 16, “The Impact of Fantasy” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
In With the Wind and the Waves, psychologist Ray M. Droby tells a story of treatment and learning, drawing on experiences ranging from an ocean journey he took on the Bering Sea while serving in a Alaska Native community to his clinical work as a psychologist in rural Alaska. Like negotiating an ocean, Droby moves “with the wind and the waves” while working with substance abuse disorders and mental health issues superimposed on intergenerational trauma and internalized oppression. He captures positive momentum in work aimed at facilitating self-determination with Alaska Natives and their communities while discouraging historical dependency and colonizing patterns of thinking and doing fo...
Happiness Genes proves that there is a definitive link between science and spirituality--that you are biologically wired for natural happiness. You have a constitutional right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And every day thousands of advertising images seduce you into believing that happiness can be bought. Put away your wallet. Happiness is at your fingertips--it's sitting right in your DNA. The new science of epigenetics reveals that there are reserves of natural happiness within your DNA that can be controlled by you, your emotions, beliefs, and your behavioral choices. Happiness Genes: Unlock the Positive Potential Hidden in Your DNA examines the nature and source of happiness, from ancient times to the present. It presents the epigenetic and other biological research that shows that DNA contains genes for natural happiness and your ultimate well-being. Then it details the 28-Day natural happiness program--you'll learn how to "switch on" your happiness genes, creating a biological cascade of well-being.
Traveling with Sugar reframes the rising diabetes epidemic as part of a five-hundred-year-old global history of sweetness and power. Amid eerie injuries, changing bodies, amputated limbs, and untimely deaths, many people across the Caribbean and Central America simply call the affliction “sugar”—or, as some say in Belize, “traveling with sugar.” A decade in the making, this book unfolds as a series of crónicas—a word meaning both slow-moving story and slow-moving disease. It profiles the careful work of those “still fighting it” as they grapple with unequal material infrastructures and unsettling dilemmas. Facing a new incarnation of blood sugar, these individuals speak back to science and policy misrecognitions that have prematurely cast their lost limbs and deaths as normal. Their families’ arts of maintenance and repair illuminate ongoing struggles to survive and remake larger systems of food, land, technology, and medicine.
The authors explore the formative effects of children's early life experiences, with an emphasis on interactions among neurodevelopmental, behavioural and cultural dynamics. Multidisciplinary case studies focus on specific periods of development during which care giving and other cultural practices have a long-lasting impact on brain and behaviour.