SynthesisBiological psychiatry2016
Effects of the Social Environment and Stress on Glucocorticoid Receptor Gene Methylation: A Systematic Review.
Synthesis in Biological psychiatry, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 303 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
303 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 788 citations in OpenAlex.
- Epigenetic mechanisms affected by stress during adolescence and the increased risk for depression later in life: a systematic review.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Perinatal stress and methylation of theEpigenetics · 2022Pooled it
- Psychopathology in the Offspring of Indigenous Parents with Mental Health Challenges: A Systematic Review: Psychopathologie des descendants de parents autochtones ayant des problèmes de santé mentale: Une revue systématique.Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie · 2021Pooled it
- A systematic review of childhood maltreatment and DNA methylation: candidate gene and epigenome-wide approaches.Translational psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- Trial
- Longitudinal DNA methylation in parent-infant pairs impacted by intergenerational social adversity: An RCT of the Michigan Model of Infant Mental Health Home Visiting.Brain and behavior · 2024Trial
- Effects of improved on-farm crop storage on DNA methylation of mothers and their infants: evidence from a randomized controlled trial in Kenya.Clinical epigenetics · 2024Trial
- Epigenetic impact of a 1-week intensive multimodal group program for adolescents with multiple adverse childhood experiences.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- Trial
- Article
- Spatial Proteomics and Epigenomics Reveal Cell Morphology and Epigenetic Gene Regulation in Human Hippocampus.Research square · 2026Article
- Glucocorticoid receptor gene (Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Review
- Maternal Childhood Neglect is Linked to Greater Infant Cortisol Levels and Larger Infant Limbic Volumes.Child maltreatment · 2026Article
- From Parallel Programming to Bidirectional Crosstalk: The Brain-Kidney Axis in Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic Syndrome.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Functional Genomics Studies of Psychiatric Disorders in Individuals of Latin American Populations: A Scoping Review.American journal of medical genetics. Part B, Neuropsychiatric genetics : the official publication of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics · 2026Article
- Early-life adversity in rodents: Experimental design is of the essence.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Review
- Article
- How nature nurtures: prenatal exposure to green space buffers the effects of maternal stress on neonatal BDNF methylation.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
243 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The early-life social environment can induce stable changes that influence neurodevelopment and mental health. Research focused on early-life adversity revealed that early-life experiences have a persistent impact on gene expression and behavior through epigenetic mechanisms. The hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis is sensitive to changes in the early-life environment that associate with DNA methylation of a neuron-specific exon 17 promoter of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) (Nr3c1). Since initial findings were published in 2004, numerous reports have investigated GR gene methylation in relationship to early-life experience, parental stress, and psychopathology. We conducted a systematic review of this growing literature, which identified 40 articles (13 animal and 27 human studies) published since 2004. The majority of these examined the GR exon variant 1F in humans or the GR17 in rats, and 89% of human studies and 70% of animal studies of early-life adversity reported increased methylation at this exon variant. All the studies investigating exon 1F/17 methylation in conditions of parental stress (one animal study and seven human studies) also reported increased methylation. Studies examining psychosocial stress and psychopathology had less consistent results, with 67% of animal studies reporting increased exon 17 methylation and 17% of human studies reporting increased exon 1F methylation. We found great consistency among studies investigating early-life adversity and the effect of parental stress, even if the precise phenotype and measures of social environment adversity varied among studies. These results are encouraging and warrant further investigation to better understand correlates and characteristics of these associations.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.