Developmental plasticity facilitates energetically costly but potentially fitness-enhancing adjustments to phenotypic trajectories in response to environmental stressors, and thus may significantly impact patterns of growth, morbidity, and mortality over the life course. Ongoing research into epigenetics and developmental biology indicate that the timing of stress exposures is a key factor when assessing their impact on developmental processes. Specifically, stress experienced within sensitive developmental windows (SDWs), discrete developmental periods characterized by heightened energy requirements and rapid growth, may alter the pace and tempo of growth in ways that significantly influence phenotypic development over both the short and long term. In human skeletal biology, efforts to assess how developmental environments shape health outcomes over the life course could be enhanced by incorporating the SDW concept into existing methodological approaches. The goal of this article is to outline an interpretive framework for identifying and interpreting evidence of developmental stress in the skeletal system using the SDW concept. This framework provides guidance for the identification of elements most likely to capture evidence of stress most relevant to a study's core research questions, the interpretation of developmental stress exhibited by those elements, and the relationship of skeletal indicators of stress to the demographic patterning of morbidity and mortality. Use of the SDW concept in skeletal biology has the potential to enrich traditional approaches to addressing developmental origins of health and disease hypotheses, by targeting periods in which individuals are most susceptible to stress and thus most likely to exhibit plasticity in response.

中文翻译：

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通过敏感的发育窗口框架检查骨骼系统的发育可塑性

发育可塑性促进了对环境压力源的响应，对表型轨迹的能量消耗巨大但可能增强健康的调整，因此可能会显着影响生命过程中的生长模式、发病率和死亡率。对表观遗传学和发育生物学的持续研究表明，在评估压力对发育过程的影响时，压力暴露的时间是一个关键因素。具体而言，敏感发育窗口 (SDW)、以能量需求增加和快速生长为特征的离散发育时期所经历的压力可能会改变生长速度和节奏，从而显着影响短期和长期的表型发育。在人类骨骼生物学中，通过将 SDW 概念纳入现有的方法论方法，可以加强评估发展环境如何影响生命过程中健康结果的努力。本文的目的是概述一个解释框架，用于使用 SDW 概念识别和解释骨骼系统中发育压力的证据。该框架为识别最有可能获得与研究核心研究问题最相关的压力证据的元素、这些元素所表现出的发展压力的解释以及压力的骨骼指标与发病率和人口统计学模式的关系提供指导。死亡。