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.

摘要

依恋是一种激励系统，可促进护理人员的安全感，从而形成持久的人际行为内部工作模型。依恋风格是在早期社会环境中形成的，并通过潜在的生物学特征预测未来的健康和发展结果，例如 DNA 甲基化 (DNAm) 等表观遗传修饰。因此，我们假设婴儿 DNAm 会与蹒跚学步的依恋风格相关联。对 3 个月大婴儿的血液 DNAm 进行的表观基因组范围关联研究 (EWAS) 在多个 DNAm 胞嘧啶-磷酸-鸟嘌呤 (CpG) 位点从 22 个月时的陌生情境程序回归到儿童的依恋类型。这 26 人确定了与促炎免疫表型和认知发展相关的 CpG。在事后分析中，只有母亲的认知成长培养，鼓励智力探索，做出贡献。对于杂乱无章的儿童，DNAm 衍生的细胞类型比例估计更高的单核细胞——假设免疫反应中的细胞随着早期的逆境而增加。总的来说，这些发现表明早在 3 个月大时，不利和有利的社会环境就可能在生物学上嵌入。