ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
DNA methylation of BDNF as a biomarker of early-life adversity.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 184 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
184 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 422 citations in OpenAlex.
- Phthalates exposure and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children: a systematic review of epidemiological literature.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2020Pooled it
- Environmental Epigenetic Changes, as Risk Factors for the Development of Diseases in Children: A Systematic Review.Annals of global health · 2018Pooled it
- Trial
- Epigenetic impact of a 1-week intensive multimodal group program for adolescents with multiple adverse childhood experiences.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- Therapeutic effect of increased openness: Investigating mechanism of action in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2017Trial
- Attention, cognitive control and motivation in ADHD: Linking event-related brain potentials and DNA methylation patterns in boys at early school age.Scientific reports · 2017Trial
- Imaging biomarkers in functional neurological disorders.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Review
- Association between BDNF methylation and expression of the NLRP3 inflammasome in the brain is disrupted in Alzheimer's disease.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2026Article
- Mitochondrial-Epigenetic Crosstalk in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Linking Cellular Stress to Synaptic Dysfunction and Treatment Resistance.Molecular neurobiology · 2026Review
- How nature nurtures: prenatal exposure to green space buffers the effects of maternal stress on neonatal BDNF methylation.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- DNA Methylation ofEnvironment & health (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Article
- The Role of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) in Neural Development and Cognitive Behavior in Pigeons: Advances and Future Perspectives.Current issues in molecular biology · 2026Review
- Bisphenol a exposure and major depressive disorder: an integrative analysis combining network toxicology, molecular docking, genetic epidemiology, and transcriptomic validation.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Stressful life events in childhood and incident stroke: cross-national, longitudinal cohort analyses of HRS and CHARLS.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Genome-Wide by Lifetime Environment Interaction Studies of Brain Imaging Phenotypes.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Stress during the first 1,000 days of life in humans, when everything begins.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Review
- Association between chronic stress and the epigenome: Exploration of psychological and biological stress.PloS one · 2026Article
- Prenatal environmental determinants of aromatase brain-promoter methylation in cord blood: chemical, airborne, pharmacological, and nutritional factors.Environmental epigenetics · 2026Article
- Changes in DNA Methylation Associated With Psychobehavioral Interventions: A Scoping Literature Review.Biological research for nursing · 2025Article
- Internalizing and Externalizing Traits During Adolescence: Using Epigenetics and Perinatal Risks to Differentiate Clusters of Symptoms.Biomolecules · 2025Article
124 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Early-life adversity increases the risk for psychopathology in later life. The underlying mechanism(s) is unknown, but epigenetic variation represents a plausible candidate. Early-life exposures can disrupt epigenetic programming in the brain, with lasting consequences for gene expression and behavior. This evidence is primarily derived from animal studies, with limited study in humans due to inaccessibility of the target brain tissue. In humans, although there is evidence for DNA methylation changes in the peripheral blood of psychiatric patients, a fundamental question remains as to whether epigenetic markers in the blood can predict epigenetic changes occurring in the brain. We used in utero bisphenol A (BPA) exposure as a model environmental exposure shown to disrupt neurodevelopment and exert long-term effects on behavior in animals and humans. We show that prenatal BPA induces lasting DNA methylation changes in the transcriptionally relevant region of the Bdnf gene in the hippocampus and blood of BALB/c mice and that these changes are consistent with BDNF changes in the cord blood of humans exposed to high maternal BPA levels in utero. Our data suggest that BDNF DNA methylation in the blood may be used as a predictor of brain BDNF DNA methylation and gene expression as well as behavioral vulnerability induced by early-life environmental exposure. Because BDNF expression and DNA methylation are altered in several psychiatric disorders that are associated with early-life adversity, including depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism, BDNF DNA methylation in the blood may represent a novel biomarker for the early detection of psychopathology.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.