Parental Influences on the Brain

Major new insights into the genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors that influence the brain and the development of behavioral and physiological traits in offspring are emerging. We are gaining an understanding of the early life environmental factors that can impact the risk of developing brain diseases and disorders. Roles for epigenetic mechanisms are emerging, and maternal and paternal age is now known to influence germline mutation rates and the risk for genetic diseases in offspring. Importantly, mothers and fathers can influence offspring phenotype and disease risk in many different ways and through different mechanisms. This special issue is focused on maternal and paternal influences on the brain, including brain development, function, behavior and health. The biomedical and sociological implications of the findings in this growing field are wide reaching, and therefore, especially well suited to an open access journal.

I invite authors to submit original research, reviews and opinion articles that address maternal and paternal influences over the brain. Contributions are encouraged from numerous different fields, such as genetics, genomics, epigenetics, imaging, behavior, metabolism, evolution and epidemiology. This special issue provides an exciting opportunity to integrate findings from diverse fields.

Topics of interest include, but are certainly not limited to:
• Maternal and paternal behavioral influences on offspring
• Nutrition and parental dietary effects
• Genomic imprinting and heritable epigenetic factors
• In utero effects
• Parental addiction and drugs of abuse
• Evolution of parental influences on the brain
• Paternally and maternally inherited genetic mutations
• Parental influences on neuropsychiatric diseases

Dr. Christopher Gregg
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Brain Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• maternal
• paternal
• parental influences on brain
• in utero
• brain
• behavior
• brain disease
• epigenetics
• genetics