Posts by Erin Dunn, ScD, MPH
-
Socioeconomic Changes Predict Genome-wide DNA Methylation in Childhood
Erin C. Dunn, ScD, MPH, Jiaxuan Liu, PhD, and colleagues demonstrate that changes in the socioeconomic environment during childhood can produce changes at a biological level, as measured through DNA methylation signatures, and middle childhood (ages 6 to 7) is potentially a particularly sensitive period.
-
Growth Marks in Teeth May Identify Children at Risk of Mental Health Disorders
Rebecca V. Mountain, PhD, and Erin C. Dunn, ScD, MPH, of the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, and colleagues are the first to observe associations between maternal psychosocial factors and child tooth-based measures that could guide mental health interventions for children before symptoms develop.
-
Adverse Prenatal Exposures Sharply Augments Risk of Psychiatric Symptoms in Childhood
The relationship between adverse prenatal exposures and psychopathology in childhood is straightforward, Massachusetts General Hospital researchers have found: the greater the number of certain exposures, the greater the risk.
-
Genetic Susceptibility to Major Depressive Disorder Associates with Symptom Trajectories Across Childhood
Alexandre A. Lussier, PhD, and Erin C. Dunn, ScD, MPH, of the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, and colleagues linked a polygenic risk score to depressive phenotypes in children and adolescents, particularly youth with higher symptom levels during early adolescence.
-
Teeth May Help Identify Children, Teens at Risk of Psychiatric Problems
At least five developmental properties of teeth suggest they could be used to identify individuals at risk of mental health problems following exposure to early-life psychosocial stress.
-
Adversity Before Age Three Has Greatest Effect on Psychiatric Risk
Exposure to childhood adversity is thought to produce DNA methylation changes that increase the risk of psychiatric disorders. Researchers have found that age at the time of adversity influences methylation more than the accumulation or recency of the exposure—with implications for timing of interventions.
-
All Humans Carry Genetic Risk Factors for Major Depression
By conducting one of the largest genome-wide association studies in psychiatry, researchers have expanded the understanding of the genetics of major depression—and suggest a new approach to studying who is genetically at high-risk for poor outcomes.
Biography
Erin Dunn, ScD, MPH, is a social and psychiatric epidemiologist with expertise in genetics. Her research lab uses a developmental lens to understand the mechanisms that influence risk for mood disorders, with an emphasis on depression among women, children and adolescents. Her primary focus is on the role of early environmental exposures, especially childhood adversity. She uses her post-doctoral training in genetics to study the role of genetic variation as well as gene-environment interplay (GxE).
Having started her career in early childhood and elementary education, she also studies the role of schools and other social contexts, such as neighborhoods, where youth spend the majority of their time outside of the family. Her work adopts a translational epidemiology perspective, seeking to bridge the “micro” with the “macro.” The long-term goal of her work is to reduce the population-burden of depression by developing population-based prevention strategies and targeting these strategies to specific life stages in development when they could have greatest impact.
Neuroscience Care at Mass General
Through a combination of unmatched expertise, creativity and compassion, Mass General Neuroscience relentlessly advances the fields of Neurosurgery, Neurology and Psychiatry to unleash our patients’ potential.