Food for Thought: Hormonal, Experiential, and Neural Influences on Feeding and Obesity
“Epigenetic mechanisms (i.e., DNA methylation, histone modifications, microRNAs) have emerged as dynamic pathways through which environmental experiences can come to be integrated within our biology, leading to variation in neurobiology, behavior, and health (Jirtle and Skinner, 2007; Champagne, 2010). Thus, in contrast to the historical view that epigenetic variation is erased at the time of fertilization, there appears to be transmission of this variation to subsequent generations…”
Anyone still touting random mutations as if they ever could possibly have ever been the substrates on which directional natural selection acts, which they are not, has remained free to provide evidence for that assertion until now. They will now be forced to provide experimental evidence for that continued assertion. Clearly, that assertion is false; there has never been experimental evidence to support it; and claims made without experimental evidence are foolish claims.
Unfortunately, the full text of this published work is no longer available from “Advances in Human Behavior and Evolution.” However, part of it is linked below, and I have posted the abstract here.
Abstract: Pheromonally induced alterations in gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) pulsatility allow for a lifelong causal linkage among olfaction, neurotransmission, autonomic responses, luteinizing hormone/follicle stimulating hormone ratios, steroidogenesis, neurotransmission, and hormonally induced behavioral changes. This integrative multidisciplinary literature review supports the following neuroendocrine sequence: The early prenatal migration of GnRH neurosecretory neurons establishes neural substrates. These substrates appear to enable human olfactory pathways to exhibit sexually dimorphic specificity to social environmental chemical stimuli and to exhibit the ability to transduce these chemical signals or pheromones. Human pheromones thereby appear to activate genes in GnRH neurons and to influence GnRH pulsatility and gonadotropin secretion.
