Prevalence rates of mental health disorders in children and adolescents have increased two to threefold from the 1990s to 2016. Some increase in prevalence may stem from changing environmental conditions in the current generation which interact with genes and inherited genetic variants. Current measured genetic variant effects do not explain fully the familial clustering and high heritability estimates in the population. Another model considers environmental conditions shifting in the previous generation, which altered brain circuits epigenetically and were transmitted to offspring via non-DNA-based mechanisms (intergenerational and transgenerational effects). Parental substance use, poor diet and obesity are environmental factors with known epigenetic intergenerational and transgenerational effects, that regulate set points in brain pathways integrating sensory-motor, reward and feeding behaviors. Using summary statistics for eleven neuropsychiatric and three metabolic disorders from 128,989 families, an epigenetic effect explains more of the estimated heritability when a portion of parental environmental effects are transmitted to offspring alongside additive genetic variance.

从 1990 年代到 2016 年，儿童和青少年精神健康障碍的患病率增加了两到三倍。患病率的一些增加可能源于当代环境条件的变化，这些环境条件与基因和遗传的遗传变异相互作用。当前测量的遗传变异效应不能完全解释群体中的家族聚类和高遗传力估计。另一个模型考虑了上一代环境条件的变化，这在表观遗传上改变了大脑回路，并通过基于非 DNA 的机制（代际和跨代效应）传递给后代。父母物质使用、不良饮食和肥胖是具有已知的表观遗传代际和跨代影响的环境因素，调节整合感觉运动、奖励和进食行为的大脑通路中的设定点。使用来自 128,989 个家庭的 11 种神经精神疾病和 3 种代谢疾病的汇总统计数据，当亲代环境影响的一部分与加性遗传变异一起传递给后代时，表观遗传效应解释了更多估计的遗传力。