Epigenetic function in mental health and neurodegenerative diseases

Abstract

Introduction: Epigenetics is defined as the study of stable and heritable changes in genome expression, without representing an alteration in nucleotide sequence.

Objective: To analyze the epigenetic role in mental health and neurodegenerative diseases.

Methods: It was a study corresponding to the exploratory level that used hermeneutics for the interpretation of the literature review carried out in the following databases: Google Academic, Redalyc, SCIELO, Dialnet, PubMed and Science Direct, trying to answer five scientific questions previously formulated.

Results: It was shown that epigenetics plays a fundamental role in the regulation of gene expression and in several biological processes, demonstrating its importance in neuronal plasticity, immune response and tumor progression. It was found that understanding epigenetic mechanisms may have significant implications in the development of new therapies and in the improvement of human health. The scientific studies consulted indicated that there is the possibility of epigenetic inheritance through mechanisms such as DNA methylation and histone modifications.  In addition, that environmental factor can generate epigenetic changes.

Conclusions: It was recognized that epigenetics plays an important role in the understanding of mental disorders and may provide new insights into their etiology, diagnosis and treatment.