About epigenetics and the central dogma of molecular biology

Abstract

This commentary on Myron Hofer's outstanding target article highlights several issues related to epigenetics and the central dogma of molecular biology. The mechanisms of Epigenetics are not universally accepted; I will review some of the background of this controversy, and discuss how knowledge of what has been termed “the struggle for authority in genetics” can inform clinicians, and help us to understand the valuable scientific and clinical insights Hofer offers. Self-organizing proteins, called prions, might be the next step in understanding the route of information from received maternal care, through changes in hormones and neuro-hormones, leading to signaling changes in the cell, that lead to inheritable changes in the epigenome. Both psychoanalysis and neuropsychoanalysis can profit from the recent findings in (molecular) biology.