Unraveling the Complexity of Epigenetics in the Brain with Dr. Esther Walton

In Europe, people aged 65 typically spend about half of their remaining years managing disabilities. Much of the existing research on aging has predominantly focused on identifying "cures" rather than exploring strategies for healthy aging. Dr. Esther Walton’s is breaking new frontiers with the unconventional approach that aging begins at birth and should be approached through a comprehensive life course strategy that integrates studies of early development, adult psychiatry, and mental aging in later life. Her research program, BrainHealth, aims to fundamentally redefine, enhance, and distinguish mental aging throughout the lifespan by examining patterns of mental aging within the innovative framework of 'brain health'.

With the BrainHealth program, Esther hopes to: 

1) characterize brain health from birth to old age by establishing robust predictors of brain health in childhood and adolescence

2) improve brain health by identifying modifiable protective factors to enhance brain health across the life course

3) differentiate between physical and mental aging by developing a tissue-specific mouse model of lifelong brain health.

If successful, this program will revolutionize the approach to healthy aging by permitting the early identification and alteration of unhealthy aging trajectories - a key societal challenge of our time.

In this week’s Everything Epigenetics podcast episode, we explore the fascinating intersection of brain health and epigenetics with Dr. Esther Walton, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology at the University of Bath. Dr. Walton discusses her pioneering work on DNA methylation and its crucial role in brain development and mental health. This is especially exciting because little is known about the extent to which DNA methylation is linked to individual differences in the brain itself, and how these associations may unfold across development - a time of life when many mental disorders emerge. By combining epigenetics with advanced neuroimaging techniques, her studies continue to uncover how these epigenetic modifications affect brain structure and function over time.

In this episode of Everything Epigenetics, you’ll learn about: 

• Why Esther studies the brain
• What DNA methylation measured in blood can tell us about the brain
• How strongly mental health is linked to physical health
• What role epigenetics plays in the link between mental and physical health
• Brain age 
• How strongly brain age is linked to epigenetic age 
• How to measure brain age 
• Developmental timing
• The importance of examining the relationships between methylation, early-life stress, the brain and mental health
• Specific brain age associations that appear and disappear at different life stages
• What Esther means by “aging starts at birth”
• The methylation im

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Thank you for joining us at the Everything Epigenetics Podcast and remember you have control over your Epigenetics, so tune in next time to learn more about how to harness this knowledge for your benefit.