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Human Behavioral Development and Genetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Ronald S. Wilson
Ronald S. Wilson*
Affiliation:
University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, Kentucky
*
Department of Pediatrics, Health Sciences Center, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292

Abstract

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Behavioral development during childhood is examined in relation to recent concepts and data from evolutionary theory and developmental genetics. The epigenetic framework of Waddington is proposed as a powerful tool for analyzing the progressions in behavior, particularly for recognizing that development involves coordinated pathways of change over time. Many of these pathways appear to depend upon the activity of timed gene-action systems that switch off and on according to a predetermined plan. Behavioral development thus gives expression to the dynamics of preprogrammed change; and in this perspective, behavioral discontinuities may be as strongly rooted in the epigenetic ground plan as the continuities are. The present paper aims to pull together some common themes from different areas that bear on the central issues of behavioral development—the neural foundations, the time course followed, the interplay of maturation and experience, the extent of preorganization furnished by the genetic program, and the adaptive significance of such behaviors in an evolutionary perspective. The final section touches on some hypotheses drawn from developmental neurobiology and developmental genetics that may enrich the analyses of human behavioral development.

Keywords

Behavioral developmentEvolutionNeurobiologyDevelopmental geneticsTwins
Type
Research Article
Information
Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae: twin research , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Twin Studies 1983

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