Associations of peripheral blood DNA methylation and estimated monocyte proportion differences during infancy with toddler attachment style

Abstract

Attachment is a motivational system promoting felt security to a caregiver resulting in a persistent internal working model of interpersonal behavior. Attachment styles are developed in early social environments and predict future health and development outcomes with potential biological signatures, such as epigenetic modifications like DNA methylation (DNAm). Thus, we hypothesized infant DNAm would associate with toddler attachment styles. An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of blood DNAm from 3-month-old infants was regressed onto children's attachment style from the Strange Situation Procedure at 22-months at multiple DNAm Cytosine-phosphate-Guanine (CpG) sites. The 26 identified CpGs associated with proinflammatory immune phenotypes and cognitive development. In post-hoc analyses, only maternal cognitive-growth fostering, encouraging intellectual exploration, contributed. For disorganized children, DNAm-derived cell-type proportions estimated higher monocytes -cells in immune responses hypothesized to increase with early adversity. Collectively, these findings suggested the potential biological embedding of both adverse and advantageous social environments as early as 3-months-old.

An integrative framework and recommendations for the study of DNA methylation in the context of race and ethnicity

“…Customs are shaped by the psychology of caregivers, including their beliefs concerning their children’s needs and appropriate behaviors, and can be bidirectionally related to the physical and social settings. Cultural practices, particularly lifestyle differences, including drinking and smoking behaviors, sleep, diet, exercise, social networks, and customs surrounding elder care and childbearing and rearing (e.g., breastfeeding, physical touch, and parenting practices), have all been linked to health and development, potentially through adaptations to these cultural environments within physiological systems and the ensuing possibility of biological embedding as measured by DNAm [ 6 , 120 – 122 ]. For example, caregiving behaviors, such as breastfeeding, vary considerably across racial and ethnic groups even after adjusting for socioeconomic and psychosocial factors.…”

A unified model of the biology of peripartum depression

“…As such, DNA methylation may account for some of the individual differences in the expression of genes and subsequently in the functioning of various systems, such as the immune system, stress response, reproductive hormones, OT, and KP. Childhood trauma, as an exemplar, may promote specific regulatory changes in HPA stress axis genes [ 95 ] and inflammatory-related genes [ 96 ] that would later in life increase the stress and/or immune system reactivity and more easily throw off balance the KP and the KP-serotonin ratio.…”

The Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition (APrON) longitudinal study: cohort profile and key findings from the first three years

“…Numerous substudies, employing portions of the APrON sample, have utilized the originally collected biosamples in related research; for example, the Neurotoxicant Study (n=546) that examined maternal exposure to endocrine hormone disrupting chemicals (i.e., bisphenol A and phthalates) on child outcomes8–13 and the Parenting Research on Mental Illness, Stress and Epi/genetics (PROMISE; n=276) Study of gene-by-environment interactions 14–18 19–2619–27 (n=276) collected additional data such as maternal and infant saliva for cortisol assessment, infant heart rate variability, and parent-infant interactions via videotaped observations.…”