- Raising children is extremely tough.
Biology has prepared us to do that,
but we have to be respectful of biology.
So, my name is Moshe Szyf.
I'm a professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics
at McGill University.
We know, from both animal studies and human studies,
in the early life, probably,
perhaps the first years,
up to two and a half years, are extremely critical
for the interpretation of stressful information.
And the child's genome is going to be adapted to that
to prepare the child for this life.
Human disease is, in its basis,
a physiological adaptation.
And if we understand this, we will understand, also,
how to prevent and deal with human disease.
A phenotype is the way we are.
For example, we can be anxious or relaxed.
We can be obese or skinny.
So, being obese is a phenotype.
Being skinny is a phenotype.
We can be autistic or not be an autistic.
These are different phenotypes.
For example, if a child is born in an adverse world,
a certain behavioral phenotype is adaptive.
You have to be anxious.
You have to be on the move all the time.
Some predator is there.
Some enemy is there.
The mother sends that signal.
But, with this signal comes another signal, which is,
there isn't going to be much food.
So better, when you have food, binge it.
So, you have to develop your brain
to binge whenever you see food,
and also, to store all the food as fat,
because you never know when the next meal is going to come.
So that's all good.
It's not bad.
But if what happens is that, later in life,
the child finds himself in a very different environment,
those adaptations become maladaptations.
For example, if the mother sends the signal
there's not going to be a lot of food, binge,
but he lives in Canada, where McDonald costs one dollar
and he can have as much food as he wants,
so being poor doesn't necessarily deprive you from food,
that binging phenotype becomes maladaptive,
can create obesity and diabetes.
Same as with anxiety or anxiousness.
Being anxious is good in the jungle,
or when you are in a very aggressive,
war-ridden environment.
But when you live in a decent society,
these properties can make you a misfit
and aggravate your social position resulting,
again, in a maladaptation.
A kid is born into a community.
And he has to adapt to live with that community.
If the signal that the community sends
is that we don't care about you,
he, then, has to develop a phenotype
that deals with a community that doesn't care about you.
So, the caring of the community
will provide signals.
So there is no question that the kind of social environment
that the child is exposed to, not just the mother,
but everything that surrounds the mother,
will eventually be translated
to a social-behavioral phenotype later in life.