Bringing Epigenetics into the Classroom: the

Need for an Epigenetic Whiplash on Formal

Education
DANIEL FRÍAS LASSERRE1*, CRISTIAN A. VILLAGRA1 & CARLOS
GUERRERO-BOSAGNA2

1-Instituto de Entomología, Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de

la Educación, Av. José Pedro Alessandri 774, Zip Code 7760197
Santiago, Chile.
*author for correspondence: [email protected]
2- Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM), Linköping
University, Sweden.

Abstract

We discuss the influence of epigenetic inheritance derived from school

environment on the development of cognitive abilities and learning.
Epigenetic mechanisms have been discovered to influence behavior
and further inheritance in animals experiencing stress. Both in humans
and rats evidence have shown that traumatic stress caused by an
adverse environment may be inherited to the descendants. The
offspring of trauma-experienced individuals expressed altered
behavior and even mental disorders without the need having suffered
these traumatic experiences. The cause of this heredity was not in the
genome but rather in the epigenetic marks (i.e. methylations), if these
marks are not deleted during the formation of gametes, permanently
suppressing the anti-stress genes. Recent discoveries have
demonstrated that noncoding RNAs are associated with the regulation
of key neurological processes such as synaptic plasticity and the
formation of the cortex of the central nervous system in children. The
advent of epigenetics has revitalized neolamarkian ideas. Beside of its
epistemological relevance, awareness of epigenetic marking derived
from educational environment it is a must; both as a new line of
research in educational academia and also in order to enrich and
improve formal education. In this context, we will discuss what are the
potential influences epigenetic may have in formal education and we
suggest the recognition and development of Educational Epigenetics.

Key words: Epigenetics, stress,learning, cultural inheritance, education

Introduction
Anyone who has watched the recent movie ‘Whiplash’ has certainly
been impressed about the passion and devotion that the 19-year old
Andrew puts toward excelling in drumming. However, Whiplash is
much more than a movie about devotion for playing an instrument.
Whiplash is indeed a movie contrasting two types of educational
concepts: one that compassionate supports the individual towards
learning a new skill, and that focuses on providing emotional and
financial support, versus the concept of education based on selecting
the ‘best of the class’ and stressfully demanding progress from she or
he. What is particular about Whiplash is that Andrew is simultaneously
subjected to these two types of educational models. Interestingly, in
Whiplash supporters of each side could claim Andrew succeeded
because of their tactics: Andrew could have exceled due to the strict
education program imposed by his music teacher Terence Fletcher, or
else by the love and support provided by his always present father.
Why is this discussion relevant from an epigenetic perspective?.
Because strict education certainly succeeds in creating excellence,
however, at a very high cost: many will drop out during the process (as
it happens in the movie with even a suicide included), and the
survivors that exceled will do so with a legacy or trauma in their brains,
as it happens with Andrew. On the other hand, how many dropouts can
be avoided by applying the paradigm of compassionate education,
combined with a rich environment?. Epigenetic studies have much to
say about both of these consequences, the effect of trauma and stress,
and the effect of a rich environment in the long term functioning of the
brain. The present paper will explore what is the role of a positive early
environment on the development of cognitive abilities, and make the
case that the benefit of induction and development of capabilities early
in the development is far more successful and productive than
applying a strong selection criteria in order to accomplish better levels
of education in society.

From Epigenesis to Epigenetics

The term “epigenesis” is rooted on ancient Greece; with the dawn of

the first ideas on organisms’ development. Aristoteles, in opposition
with Hippocratic School’s preformist ideas, postulated that embryo
organs were originated during development (Muller & Olsson, 2003).
During XVII, William Harvey in his pioneering book “Exercitationes de
generatione animalium” used the term epigenesis in order to explain
organisms’ development from unstructured germinal matter. Later,
Waddington (1942), using his metaphor “Adaptive Landscape” to refer
to epigenesis as a concept to explain causal interactions between
genes and its products, generating phenotypes through cell
differentiation mediated by genetic regulation (Slack, 2002). This
conceptual achievement gave rise to Epigenetics (Waddington, 1942;

2
Van Speybroeck, 2002). These revolutionary ideas did not flourished in
the following years, mostly because most researchers were focused on
Mendelian inheritance, only finding its rebirth with recent advances in
molecular biology (Jamniczky et al., 2010). The technological advances
gave strength and further empirical support to Waddington ideas and
the relevance of epigenetics have reached out the academic discussion
and it is becoming a relevant factor to discuss issues of public concern
from human health and welfare to globalization and global warming
crisis (Portela & Esteller, 2010; Baylin & Jones, 2011; Guerrero-Bosagna
& Jensen, 2015). The goal of the present work is to provide a historic
revision on the link between epigenesis, epigenetics and neuroscience
exploring the implications of epigenetic dynamics on formal education,
and opening the discussion on the space concerning the epigenetics of
education.

Foundations on Behavioral Epigenesis

North American psychologist James M. Baldwin was one of the first in

to discuss behavioral epigenetics when we proposed the term “organic
inheritance” (Baldwin, 1896, 1897). Baldwin was interested on the
hereditary bases from the development of some intellectual skills in
children such as memory, reasoning and language; As well as how
these may relate with social development and its potential
consequences on behavior evolution (Bloom, 1986; Broughton, 1981).
Baldwin attempted a reconciliation between Darwinism and
Lamarckian ideas. He argued that individuals’ habit to learn may guide
evolutionary processes. Cultural inheritance from a learnt behavior
during several generations may become a genetically based behavior.
In other words, epigenetic condition of an individual may arise by
means of natural selection. Skills initially requiring a learning process
to develop would be replaced trough the evolution of a genetically
determined system with no need of further learning (Baldwin, 1896,
1897; Loredo, 2004; Lorendo & Sánchez, 2004).
Baldwin ideas were opposed to Weismann’s whom postulated a drastic
differentiation between germinal cells and somatic cells, proposing the
existence of an unbreakable barrier between these two kinds
(“Weismann barrier”, reviewed by Winther 2001). On his perspective,
biological inheritance was located only in germinal cells and any kind
of chance suffered by somatic cells will not be transferred to the
following generation. However, now it is recognized that there exist
mechanism allowing stress and other environmental pressures
experienced through ontogeny to affect inheritance, revisiting Baldwin
idea.
Despite its contribution, epigenesis of behavior and learning is more
often associated with the works of Piaget than with Baldwin’s. This is

3
due to the big steps advanced by constructivism. Piaget used
Waddington epigenesis concept to explain some aspects of human
behavior and its core relevance on animal behavioral evolution
(Genovese, 2003; Piaget, 1970). An environmental factor is assimilated
by genotype in a way that it became independent from its
environmental inductor, this process was previously considered by
Waddington whom coined it as “genetic assimilation” (Waddington,
1953). Piaget extrapolated this concept for the psychological level
labeling it as “cognitive assimilation”, meaning that no knowledge is a
copy of real world because it always involve a process of assimilation
of previous structures (Piaget, 1969). Assimilation, as described above,
plays a key role in any knowledge acquisition process. When a child
perceived an object, identified it as belonging to certain conceptual
categories previously defined by its perception (Piaget, 1969). Piaget
also took the idea of epigenetic landscape or “creodas” de Waddington
to its cognitive discussion. This idea, as mentioned before, proposes
that during development exist differentiated routes linked to the
development of different organs. For Waddington, all embriogenic
process depends on a network of genetic interactions and not to the
action of particular genes; he states as unacceptable the idea of
genetic determinism. Piaget welcomed such approach and postulated
that adaptive landscape for cognitive functions suppose a tight
collaboration between environmental factors and genome. Therefore,
for Piaget, genetic epistemology consisted in to explain the
construction of knowledge, of psychological functions and
“intelligence” during development through interrelated mechanisms
where cognitive assimilation, epigenetic landscape and adaptation of
species to its environment play a preponderant role (Piajet, 1969,
1970).
This channeled construction of knowledge is what makes the individual
more capable to seek for solutions to problems faced by his
environment. Extrapolating some of these concepts to the classroom,
in it each student structures his knowledge of the world based on a
common unique pattern presented by the teacher. They connect every
single fact, experience or understanding of information in a new
structure that grows in a subjective manner, leading the student to
establish significant relationship with the world (Abbot & Ryan, 1999;
Eshach, 2007).
Recent thinkers on the construction of cognition remark the dynamic
characteristic of these behavioral processes (Oyama, 2003). As
Waddington and Piaget she also refused the distinction between
nature-nurture and the prevalence of a genetic preponderance for
explaining human psychology. Instead Oyama defines cognitive
processes as developmental systems and stress out the existence of
dynamic emergent controls that help to understand acquired
phenotypic modifications through both evolutionary and ecological

4
contexts. These controls emerge during the interaction of organic
organization, through the hierarchical levels of behavior and cognition
in time. To our approach learning and formal education fits to Oyama’s
notion of developmental systems and are subject to the dialectical flux
between levels explaining its phenotype and hereditary consequences
for our species, where in addition to evolution and ecology
socioeconomic factors must be considered on behavioral development
and learning (Hackman et al 2010).

Modern Epigenetics, Mechanisms and Inheritance

Initial propositions addressing the link between genotype and

phenotype hypothesized a more or less linear functional connection
among them, where the phenotype was the result of the interaction of
genes with the environment. This constituted the classical proposition
of Mendelian genetics. In this framework, phenotype is the result of a
“genetic program” located in a coded area of genome. Based on this
proposal, “norm of reaction” and “phenotypic plasticity” will never be a
part of organisms inheritance system. However, recently a mayor
scientific achievement changed this previous paradigm; the
demonstration of the existence of small ribonucleic acid molecules not
bearing any proteosyntetic function, called non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs).
(Ghildiyal & Zamore, 2009; Guil & Esteller, 2012; Jacquier, 2009; Pauli,
et al. , 2011).
These ncRNAs derived from messenger RNAs (mRNAs) (introns) and
they were considered to be part of the so-called “genetic junk” (Muotri
et al., 2007). Later, considerable amounts of ncRNAs were also
discovered in retroviruses, retrotramposons and non-coding sectors of
DNA. Most striking of all was the discovery that, these ncRNAs were
able to regulate gene expression similarly to proteins (Wang et al.,
2008), and their altered function gives rise to diverse hereditary
maladies, such as neurological disorders (Vučićević, et al 2014). In
multicellular organisms, cell types differentiate during development in
order to form organs associated with specific capabilities. In each cell
type originated during development specific ncRNAs are transcribed
and epigenetic patterns are established. In these cell type-specific
epigenetic patterns are composed of epigenetic marks such as histone
modifications or DNA methylation (Keller & Bühler, 2013), which are
able to “switch off” genes that are not in use in a given tissue
(Cabianca et al., 2012), while “switching on” genes involved in specific
functions in these derived cells (Fatica & Bozzoni, 2014; Guttman et al.,
2011).
The identification of crucial developmental periods of major epigenetic
reprograming in laboratory rodents was a fundamental step in
epigenetic research (Hackett & Surani 2013a). Two developmental
periods exist in which major epigenetic changes occur in the genome

5
of mammals (Hackett & Surani 2013a, d). One of these periods is after
fertilization, where a reduction in methylation occurs followed by re-
establishment of methylation patterns by the time of blastocyst
implantation (Hackett & Surani 2013d). This epigenetic reprogramming
is crucial for the differentiation of somatic cells lines.
Another period of epigenetic reprogramming, which is of high
relevance for the germ line, occurs during the migration of primordial
germ cells (PGCs) towards their final establishment in the gonads
(Allegrucci et al. 2005, Lees-Murdock & Walsh 2008). During this
migration a major demethylation of the genome also occurs followed
by re-methylation (Hackett & Surani 2013a, Lees-Murdock & Walsh
2008). Periods of resetting of DNA methylation patterns, either in early
embryos or PGCs, are windows of sensitivity to environmental
exposures (Feil & Fraga 2011, Jirtle & Skinner 2007). Interfering with
the resetting period of PGCs, however, has different implications than
interfering with the resetting period of pre-implantation embryos.
Because the germ line has the ability of transmitting epigenetic marks
to next generations, altered DNA methylation patterns produced in the
germ line after interferences with this epigenetic reprograming can be
transgenerationally perpetuated (Skinner et al. 2010). This is described
as the phenomena of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance
(Daxinger & Whitelaw 2012, Grossniklaus et al. 2013).
Recent investigations show that several diseases of common
occurrence in human populations are not inherited in a Mendelian
fashion, but through transgenerational epigenetic inheritance
(Guerrero-Bosagna & Jensen 2015). These environmentally-induced
diseases, which are transgenerationally transmitted, include obesity,
polycystic-ovary syndrome or male fertility impairments (Anway et al.
2005, Guerrero-Bosagna & Skinner 2014, Guerrero-Bosagna et al.
2012, Nilsson et al. 2012, Skinner et al. 2013).
Recent reports have also shown that not only developmental exposures
but juvenile or adult exposures could also produce alterations in the
germ line with consequences in future generations. Examples of this
phenomena include: exposure of juvenile male mice to low protein
diets, which produces alterations in the liver transcriptome of the
offspring (Carone et al. 2010); fear conditioning of adult male mice
with an odorant, which has consequences in the neural anatomy in the
next two generations (Dias & Ressler 2014); and paternal stress in
male mice, which affects the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis
and micro RNA expression in the offspring (Rodgers et al. 2013). In all
these cases the transgenerational transmission of the effects is
mediated by epigenetic alterations in the paternal germ line.

Epigenome and Epimutations affecting Behavior

6
The relevance of epigenetic processes in synaptic plasticity, learning,
and memory has recently been demonstrated, in different model
organism (Mundinger, 1995; Kramer et al., 2011). It has recently been
shown that memory stabilization in postmitotic neurons is linked to
epigenetic mechanisms in cell differentiation and development (Day &
Sweatt, 2011a) with memory formation and maintenance being related
to changes in DNA methylation patterns (Day & Sweatt, 2011b). For
instance, early life stress has been demonstrated to persist due to
these processes been capable of affecting learning and memory
capabilities (McClelland et al., 2011).
Epigenetics not only explain the emergence of phenotypic plasticity,
but also the inheritance of these environmentally induced characters.
Phenotypes correspond then to genotype dialectic with epigenotype
with the contribution of environmental factors (Frías-Lasserre, 2012).
Modern epigenetics consider the molecular changes influencing
genetic expression without modifying the DNA sequence; These
changes include DNA methylation and chromatin’s histone modification
(acetylation), RNA silencing mediated by ncRNAs, RNA editing, epi and
paramutations (Morgan et al., 2005; Probst et al., 2009; Gonzáles et
al., 2011). Many of these changes are sensitive to environmental cues
(Li et al., 1993; Reik & Walter, 2001; Salmon et al., 2008; Jablonka &
Raz, 2009; Johannes et al., 2009; Koerner et al., 2009; Verhoeven et al.,
2010; Daxinger & Whitelaw, 2012; MacDonald, 2012; Frésard et al.,
2013).
Recently, Isabele Manzur and collaborators from Zurich University have
demonstrated that traumatic stress can be inherited in rats. In this
experiment (2014), newborn pups were separated from their mothers
during two weeks. During that time they reacted in a very dramatic
way to their mother’s separation developing depression symptoms and
antisocial behaviors when reaching adulthood, been incapable of
facing adverse or novel circumstances. Such traumatized rats
preserved their altered behavior during all this life and transmitted
them to their offspring, demonstrating that these aberrant behaviors
were kept for the next three generations (Gapp et al., 2014). Also in
our own species it is been demonstrated that infancy´s posttraumatic
stress, beside of modifying subject’s behavior and generating
psychological disorders, may also became inheritable to offspring (Taha
et al., 2014).
Behavioral changes are also shown to be related to disruption of
genomic imprinting, which correspond to epigenetic marks that are
differentially established in each parental allele, inducing parental-
specific expression in diploid cells (Reik & Walter, 2001). Due to
imprinting, the expression of some genes is restricted one of the
alleles. Alteration of imprinting in these genes may contribute to the
development of neurobiological disorders such as psychosis and
autism (Isles et al., 2006; Úbeda & Gardner, 2010, 2011, 2012).

7
Studies in rodents have described genomic imprinting related with
parental care (Wilkins & Haig, 2003; Wolf & Hager, 2006). Regarding
epigenetic trauma affecting behavioral epigenesis, it has been
demonstrated that early-life adversity remains as a perdurable
epigenetic marks at the brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene in the
central nervous system (Roth, et al. 2009).
In another work, unpredictable maternal separation induces
depressive-like behaviors and altered behavioral response to aversive
environments in isolated adult animals due to DNA methylation
alterations. Moreover, these behavioral alterations were further found
in the offspring of males affected by maternal separation. With
disregard that that these males were reared normally, DNA
methylation pattern linked to altered gene expression were also
present in these generation(Franklin et al., 2010). These researches
demonstrate the relevance of epigenetic molecular mechanism leaving
lifelong and possible transgenerational perpetuation of changes in
gene expression and behavior epigenesis incited by early trauma and
stress
In 2014’s Gapp and collaborators studied the number and kind of a
specific ncRNA (microRNAs) expressed in adult rat cells exposed to
traumatic conditions during early life and compare them with non-
traumatized rodents. They discovered that traumatic stress was
capable of altering the amounts of microRNAs in blood, brain and
spermatozoids. Some of these were produced in excess while others
were underrepresented in comparison with control animals. These
changes were result of a deficient regulation of cell processes
controlled by these microRNAs. As explained before, following
traumatic experiences during infancy, adult rodents behaved quite
different from control showing depressive behaviors. These behavioral
symptoms also occurred in their offspring’s, despite these pups were
never exposed to stress in their ontogeny, suggesting that these
traumatized pattern was inherited trough the epigenetic marking on
parental’s spermatozoids.
Together with spermatozoid`s microRNAs imbalance a key factor in
trauma transmission was discovered, however, some questions are still
open. For example, how does short RNA deregulation occur? Most likely
is that this is a part of a chain of events beginning with the production
of excesses of stress hormones (Gapp et al 2014). In these
experiments, decedent’s metabolism from stressed rats also was
affected: insulin levels and blood ‘s sugar were lower than controls.
With these evidences it was first demonstrated that stress-affecting
metabolisms may also be trangenerationally transferred through
epigenetic inheritance, even to the third generation. It is important to
highlight that acquired traits, different from the ones incorporated
through stress, may also be inherited by similar mechanisms as the
one studied by Gapp and collaborators. Surrounding environment

8
leave footprints in human brains, organs and also gametes. Through
these effects, these marks may even pass to the next generation
(Gapp et al. 2014).
These mechanisms and examples of transgenerational epigenetic
inheritance on behavior and cognition remark the relevance of
incorporating these knowledge not only as additional chapters in
school teaching but in the development of educational policy,
considering how environmental pressures may affect students and its
parents as active parts of the success of formal education. The
following section focus on our ideas related to this topic.

Relevance of Neurobiological Epigenetics in Education

Neuroscience and its application to education is an emerging

interdisciplinary field that integrates brain functioning, pedagogy and
education (Sigman,et al 2014). This assembly has triggered a true
revolution in educational research and practicing (Goswami, 2006),
however, there still a need to fill the gap between science and school
life in order to incorporate the latest discoveries on behavioral and
psychological epigenetics to improve and effectively impact formal
education (Howard-Jones, 2014). Genes are involved with epigenetic
mechanisms during brain development and its functional configuration
(Singer, 2008; Fagiolini et al., 2009). Therefore, the epigenetic
component of brain dynamic during learning and memory formation
must be considered by educational neuroscience research and
application (Gräff & Mansuy, 2008)(Levenson & Sweatt, 2005, Day &
Sweatt, 2011a). On top of this ontogenetic developmental process are
the potential epigenetic transgenerational effects earlier discussed,
thus epigenetic influences may be pervasive.
Paraphrasing Susan Oyama, the configuration of the educational
process it is a developmental system itself where students and its
surrounding environment constitute a unit of dynamic development
(Oyama, 2000). This is why defining what it is the objectives of formal
education are basic in order to design appropriate programs
considering neurobiology and epigenetic effects on students and its
family.
As mentioned above, many studies show the inheritance of
environmentally-induced nervous system pathologies. However,
Mendelian genetic has been unsuccessful in providing an adequate
explanation to the inheritance mechanisms related to the etiology of
these diseases, as most of them are they were not shown to be
determined inherited in a Mendelian fashion. Additionally, it is known
traumatic experiences may induce behavioral disorders capable to be
transferred to the offspring, as discovered by Gapp et al (2014).
Nonetheless, its mechanism of transmission was not clear neither it
was possible to associate specific genes to these phenotypes. Only

9
after the advent of molecular genetics is when the mystery of altered
behavior’s heredity is been disentangled. Now we are aware that
epigenetic mechanisms play a preponderant role. This, because
different types of these molecules are transcribed to some tissues and
there they play a particular role; and when this role is altered they
cause diseases (Niland et al., 2012; Fenoglio et al., 2013)
In the last years it has been described that mRNAs and micro RNAs
play a major role in neural and synaptic plasticity in mammals(Burke &
Barnes, 2006; Vo, Cambronne, & Goodman, 2010). This is explained by
the regulatory effect of micro RNAs over dendrite morphogenesis
during early development (Kosik, 2006; Smalheiser & Lugli, 2009;
Bredy et al., 2011; Fenoglio et al., 2013). Some RNAs (si RNAs) show a
drastic augmentation during learning early stages, these have been
suggested as relevant on the expression of neuropsiquiatric diseases
(Smalheiser & Lugli, 2009; Spadaro & Bredy, 2012, Roth, et al 2009).
All this evidence demonstrates the relevance of developmental
environment and transgenerational epigenesis and epigenetics for an
adequate achievement of cognitive goals such as formal education and
learning (Galván, 2010), remarking the adequacy of considers the
educational process as a developmental system (sensu Oyama) where
parental health is part of the fundamental inheritance where the bricks
of further experience acquisition will be cemented. In addition, this
developmental system must consider learning and its cognitive
process in its epigenetic dimensions allowing students to achieve these
goals and construct their significant meanings on their brains in a
suitable environment for brain development, especially in their early
stages of structural organization.
Because all these epigenetic-related advances are changing the
foundations of behavioral sciences and neurobiology, it is paramount
that these novel concepts that emerge are incorporated into the
teaching philosophy at the levels of basic and high schools.

Discussion and Future Developments

Epigenetics is a new discipline derived from genetics that include the

environmental context as relevant part of heredity. This science branch
is shaking the foundations of Medicine, Psychiatry and Psychology and
without doubt will have an impact on Educational Sciences through
Neurosciences. In order to understand and ponder the relevance and
transforming power of these epigenetic processes it is necessary to
incorporate the epigenetic component in to the regulatory processes
occurring in our central nervous system (Day & Sweatt, 2011b). When
education researchers will achieve this, its transposition to policy
makers cannot wait.

10
It is necessary to extrapolate these brain-developing factors both in
the concepts to be teaching in school education and Universities.
Actions must be considered in order to ensure fair conditions for
memory and learning development from early children to adulthood. It
will be a must to regulate and norm that educational institutions have
the adequate environmental conditions for an enriching and healthy
educational process. In this way all actors involved in the educational
system will contribute in to education goals and in to the prevention of
cognitive and psychiatric disorder in students with potential hereditary
consequences, as explained above.
Statements such as “La letra con sangre entra”, sort of like “Characters
(letters) are learnt with blood” classically repeated by Sarmiento’s
school for education in South America (reviewed by Carli 2014) and
kept nowadays changing instead of “blood” its legal synonym “rigor
and stress” for students as a positive factor contributing to their
significant learning must be erased from the formation of future
teachers and school educators. This, in consideration to the effect of
traumatic experiences both in the cognitive processes and students’
future mental health (Prinzie et al., 2004) and its hereditary
consequences suggested by last findings in rodents.
Therefore, serious efforts must be emprise in order to gain awareness
of the different controls and influences shaping the outcomes of school
teaching and, furthermore, the potential influences of these
experiences on the future cognitive development and heredity kept by
the subjects of such educational processes. Epigenetic of education is
going on, and we have to consider it as part of the equation on formal
education.
Inadequate learning environments may affect the pathways on the
underlying developmental process. As explained with nowadays
evidence from epigenetic studies, these stress factors and unhealthy
environments may alter the formation of neural circuits, affecting the
acquisition of abilities linked to learning and generate epigenetic marks
on students gametes with potential disastrous consequences for the
mental heath of their sons and daughters. Epigenetic processes are a
scientific fact and must be incorporated to our educational reality in
order to be able to consider their potential values and use it in favor of
a better educational system. Current progress have to be
acknowledged, such as The Moore Institute School of Medicine with its
“Lets get Healthy” initiative (www.letsgethealthy.org), which
incorporate epigenetic dimension on Middle school program, as a way
to considerate these field in to educational backgrounds.
We propose efforts must be concentrated in to develop
multidisciplinary research and dialogue between educators and
scientist in order to construct an applied field focused on education:
Educational Epigenetics.

11
Acknowledgements
The authors greatly appreciate funding provided by FIBE 07-12
DIUMCE, Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación.

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