Biomedical subjects

Gilbert Gottlieb

Publications and source records attributed to Gilbert Gottlieb.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2007

Probabilistic epigenesis.

The notion that phenotypic traits, including behavior, can be predetermined has slowly given way in biology and psychology over the last two decades. This shift in thinking is due in large part to the growing evidence for the fundamental role of developmental processes in the generation of the stability and variations in phenotype that researchers in developmental and evolutionary sciences seek to understand. Here I review the tenets of a metatheoretical model of development called probabilistic epigenesis (PE) and explore its implications for furthering our understanding of developmental and evolutionary processes. The PE framework emphasizes the reciprocity of influences within and between levels of an organism's developmental manifold (genetic activity, neural activity, behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural influences of the external environment) and the ubiquity of gene-environment interaction in the realization of all phenotypes.

Biological Evolution↗

PubMed2004

How early experience matters in intellectual development in the case of poverty.

Experiments with rodents indicate that severe early psychological and social deprivation has lasting detrimental effects on learning ability that are not remedied by exposure to enriching experiences in adulthood. Findings indicate that environmental adversity early in life works to limit the development of intelligence with consequences for later functioning. Animal experiments are best viewed as supplying a rationale for early intervention in disadvantaged infants and children who would otherwise be likely to evince low intellectual capabilities later in life. Animal experiments conducted to date do not support an interpretation that early enrichment necessarily boosts later intellectual performance beyond the normal or species-typical range. They indicate that early intervention promotes normative development by preventing adverse early rearing conditions from leading to negative consequences for cognitive ability and self-regulation. The Abecedarian Project, an early enrichment intervention with infants from economically deprived backgrounds, is presented as an example of how early experience matters in terms of human intellectual development in disadvantaged populations. The results of that program reflect what one would expect from the rodent studies mentioned above.

Animals↗

PubMed2002

A relational view of causality in normal and abnormal development.

An understanding of developmental phenomena demands a relational or coactive concept of causality, as opposed to a conceptualization that assumes that singular causes can act in isolation. In this article we present a developmental psychobiological systems view of relational (bidirectional, coactional) causality, in which it is proposed that developmental outcomes are a consequence of at least two specific components of coaction from the same or different levels of a developmental system. The levels are genetic, neural, behavioral, and environmental; the latter level includes the cultural, social, and physical aspects of an organism's environment. We show the applicability of this view to the understanding of the development of normal and abnormal behavioral and psychological phenotypes through illustrations from the existing animal and human literature. Finally, we discuss future possibilities and potential stumbling blocks in the implementation of a more fully realized bidirectional, coactional perspective in developmental psychopathological research.

Alcoholism↗

PubMed2002

Developmental-behavioral initiation of evolutionary change.

The traditional approach to evolutionary psychology relies entirely on natural selection as the cause of the evolution of adaptations. Exclusive reliance on natural selection overlooks the fact that changes in development are a necessary prerequisite for evolutionary change. These developmental changes provide the material for natural selection to work on. In the neo-Darwinian scenario, the mechanisms of evolution are mutation or genetic recombination, selection, migration, and eventual reproductive isolation. In the spirit of evolutionary pluralism, the author describes a different 3-stage scenario in which migration (the invasion of new niches or habitats) may occur without mutation or genetic recombination and selection first initiating a change in genes or gene frequencies.

Adaptation, Physiological↗