by Gene E. Robinson, Rina Bliss, Matthew E. Hudson
Animal studies reveal that the molecular wiring of the brain can be altered by heredity, the environment, and their interaction. A deeper molecular understanding of these interactions could be a potent antidote to societal concerns of genetic determinism for human behavior, but this requires a paradigm that extends beyond traditional genome-wide association study (GWAS). This Perspective suggests that a deeper understanding of genotype by environment interactions at the molecular level could be a potent antidote to societal concerns of genetic determinism. Developing this idea for human social and behavioral genomics will require a paradigm that extends beyond traditional GWAS.