What makes you, you? We know your genes, your parents鈥� genes, and their parents鈥� genes all play a big role. But what about everything else鈥攜our individual circumstances and surroundings 鈥� your life? This week At the Lab, CSHL Assistant Professor Gabrielle Pouchelon gets at the heart of the matter鈥攊n your head.
Read the related story: Finding the sweet spot in brain development
Transcript
Sam Diamond: You鈥檙e now At the Lab with 黑料吃瓜资源. My name is Sam Diamond and this week At the Lab, 鈥淣ature versus nurture.鈥�
SD: It鈥檚 one of humanity鈥檚 oldest arguments. Are we solely the product of our genetics? Or is it our upbringing and surroundings that determine who we are? Today, we understand that the answer is a bit of both.
SD: What we don鈥檛 know is precisely how this works. How do nature, in the form of our individual biological makeup, and nurture, in the form of environmental and experiential factors, interact during our brain鈥檚 development?
SD: That question is central to the work of CSHL Assistant Professor Gabrielle Pouchelon. To answer it, she starts with our earliest neural connections.
Gabrielle Pouchelon: In mice, they happen during the first week after birth. So, right after birth, they鈥檙e highly connected to their sensory system. And that is also very important because we鈥檙e not yet able to create sensorimotor action to integrate the world. But we鈥檙e definitely receiving all those sensory inputs.
SD: Pouchelon鈥檚 team identified a specific protein that helps regulate the timing of the mouse brain鈥檚 early neural connections. Importantly, these connections are temporary and highly dynamic.
SD: That鈥檚 critical because it means the brain can adapt to minor mishaps in development without a significant impact. In fact, that鈥檚 exactly what Pouchelon鈥檚 team observed. When the timing of these connections was altered in mice, the resulting changes were so minute they were hardly detectable.
GP: Indeed, there is no huge defect. They run fine. They explore the same way. And it鈥檚 only when we take all of those little behavior sequences and look at them together that we see a difference. So, what we see is nothing that we can interpret as dysfunctional. We can just say that they use their system differently.
SD: Sound familiar? While Pouchelon鈥檚 research does not directly connect this atypical behavior with autism, she is willing to speculate that disruptions in the timing of early neural connections could impact how we think and act later in life.
SD: And this speaks to an overarching theme of Pouchelon鈥檚 work. Long before we utter our first words, our genetic programming and environmental cues are in regular conversation鈥攏ature and nurture talking it out and always listening.
SD: Thank you for listening as we talk out our latest science. If you like what you heard, please subscribe to get another fascinating story like this delivered each week. You can also find more at CSHL.edu. For 黑料吃瓜资源, I鈥檓 Sam Diamond, and I鈥檒l see you next time At the Lab.