[PEN-L:27280] Prozac & Productivity

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Prozac & Productivity
by Carrol Cox
27 June 2002 04:02 UTC

There was a fine science column in last Friday's WSJ -- on the way
environment turns genes off and on. For example, if you've been without
sex for awhile and are expecting to get some tomorrow your beard may
grow faster: sexual activity triggers a flow of testosterone, but
apparently even thinking about it can do the same thing. And rats that
are licked a lot by their mother when pups are more curious and less
subject to panic than other rats -- because the licking turns on some
genes.

-clip-

This all comes from a "new technology of microarray analysis, in which
'gene chips' reveal which DNA in a sample of tissue is expressed and
which is quiescent."

In other words technology is beginning to show that macro features of
the environment are _part_ of genetic causation; a huge new pile of data
to support the argument in Levins & Lewontin's _Not in Our Genes_ --
it's in the environment which turns on some genes and turns off others.

^^^^^^^^^

CB: I agree with your general approach of relating genes and environment as a dialectical whole, but specifically, when testosterine flow is begot, it is not through genes being turned on is it ? It would be glands, not genes. Genes function to shape more fundamental developments mostly in the womb and infancy, no ? For example, the development of glands is related to genes ( and proteins have a bigger role at this level the genome project results suggest). But a once a gland is developed in an adult, its function is not related to current genetic activity in the gland.