Pharmacogenetics & Epigenetics More and more evidenced based research is focusing on the role of epigenetics in development of mental illness and response to psychopharmaceutical agents. Epigenetics can also affect a person’s potential for resiliency to stress, anxiety, and depression. As pharmacogenetic testing has become more affordable/accessible to patients, there is growing research (and concerns) that epigenetic changes can potentially effect a person’s phenotypic metabolic expression, and by extension, their ability to metabolize medications. More specifically, “It turns out that epigenetic modifications due to environmental factors, life stress, disease states, and epigenetic heritability play a significant role on the ultimate expression of a particular gene and will determine that gene’s phenotype—not the unchanging gene’s DNA sequence that pharmacogenomic testing reports use to determine a patient’s putative phenotype” (Miller, 2021). Read the attached article “Epigenetics Collide With Pharmacogenomics” by Dr. John Miller. Considering his observations, find an evidence-based article (within the last five years) that addresses epigenetic implications in mental health. Share your article’s summary and your professional subsequent observations of how your article, in conjunction with Dr. Miller’s observations, can potentially affect how psychiatric providers may prescribe in the future.
