Stephanie Lloyd

When it runs in the family: putting susceptibility genes in perspective

Using the genetics of late onset Alzheimers disease (LOAD) as illustrative, this paper argues for a reflexive critique of the involved science, specifically in connection with estimations of increased risk. Following a review of social science commentary on genetic testing and screening in general, current scientific understanding about the molecular and population genetics of LOAD is then presented. The results of open-ended interviews conducted with first-degree relatives of individuals diagnosed with LOAD at two study sites follow. It is shown that the majority of people interviewed embrace the idea of complexity in connection with Alzheimers disease causation and that many draw on a concept of “blended inheritance” with respect to the disease that “runs” in their family. It is argued that knowledge about risk obtained from genetic testing for LOAD rarely usurps other forms of understanding, but is nested by interviewees into previously held ideas about who in the family is most at risk for the disease.

Genetic susceptibility for Alzheimer's disease: Why did adult offspring seek testing?

This study explored why adult offspring of individuals with Alzheimers disease (AD) sought genetic susceptibility testing for AD. Participants (N = 60) were a subset of subjects from the first randomized controlled clinical trial to offer such testing. Qualitative analysis revealed two central constructs: altruism and learning. Planning for the future, hoping to prevent AD, and need to know were concepts that explained the value of learning. These results add important contextual information into why people might seek information on their genetic risk for a severe neurodegenerative disease for which there are, as yet, no preventative treatments. As genetic susceptibility testing for numerous other diseases enters clinical medicine, these findings can enhance the knowledge and sensitivity of researchers and clinicians when they are asked by participants or patients whether they should be tested.

Morals, Medicine and Change: Morality Brokers, Social Phobias, and French Psychiatry

This paper will examine how French neurotics are being transformed into ‘social phobics’ and how the appearance of this group may be tied to new personal and social ideals. There are many people and factors that contribute to this changing definition of mental illness. Amongst these, I will focus on the role of three groups who are most vocally acting as morality brokers in the creation of these new subjects: psychiatrists, patients’ groups and pharmaceutical companies.

Pursuit of a ‘Normal Life’: Mood, Anxiety, and Their Disordering

Throughout the process of being treated for mood and anxiety disorders, people dream of the “normal life” that awaits them. However, post-therapy, the distinctiveness of clinical normality (i.e., reduced symptomatology) and social normativity become more apparent. In this article we suggest that for people who have long felt socially excluded because of their psychiatric symptoms, being “normally shy” or “normally awkward” is not enough. Instead they aspire to an ideal life. This confusion between means and ends, between a nonsymptomatic self, a normative self, and an ideal self, leads these individuals to long-term self-doubt and confusion about how to reach their elusive goals. Yet, their never-ending pursuit of normative ideals applies to “normal” and “abnormal” people alike. An analysis of narratives of exclusion allows us to reflect the life-long search for social inclusion via a normal life.

The Clinical Clash over Social Phobia: The Americanization of French Experiences?

While social phobia is a well-known disorder in North America, it has been little known among the general French population. For several years now a small group of French clinicians and members of a social phobia support group have begun fighting for its recognition. Their voices have had a significant impact, and today information about the disorder has reached thousands or even millions of French citizens. The introduction of social phobia in France involves more than the acceptance of this one condition. Social phobia is a part of a standard North American diagnostic system that remains marginal in France; this therapeutic framework must be adopted in order for social phobia to be accepted. This article focuses on the words of French physicians, many of whom reject social phobia as a diagnosis, and a smaller number who are desperate for its acceptance. Through their words, I trace the multiple factors that are slowing the acceptance of social phobia, but not preventing it. Culture, history, economy and single-minded careerism are among the factors that clinicians link to the appearance of social phobia in France. In conclusion, I consider the argument that social phobia in France is an example of the global exportation of North American conceptions of mental health and mental disorder.

The Palgrave Handbook of Biology and Society

his comprehensive handbook synthesizes the often-fractured relationship between the study of biology and the study of society. Bringing together a compelling array of interdisciplinary contributions, the authors demonstrate how nuanced attention to both the biological and social sciences opens up novel perspectives upon some of the most significant sociological, anthropological, philosophical and biological questions of our era. The six sections cover topics ranging from genomics and epigenetics, to neuroscience and psychology to social epidemiology and medicine. The authors collaboratively present state-of-the-art research and perspectives in some of the most intriguing areas of what can be called biosocial and biocultural approaches, demonstrating how quickly we are moving beyond the acrimonious debates that characterized the border between biology and society for most of the twentieth century.This landmark volume will be an extremely valuable resource for scholars and practitioners in all areas of the social and biological sciences.

Epigenetics and the Suicidal Brain: Reconsidering Context in an Emergent Style of Reasoning

In this chapter, we consider the models of suicide risk emerging from environmental epigenetics research at the McGill Group for Suicide Studies. We argue that this research represents an emergent style of reasoning in which a range of contextual and environmental factors are both molecularized and located in the brain. We also argue that implicit in this research is a notion of a “suicidal brain”: a brain that responds to adverse life experiences with an increase in risk of suicidal behaviour. In examining both this concept and its attendant styles of reasoning, we highlight some of the issues which research in environmental epigenetics raises for the study of suicide, as well as for the social sciences more broadly.

Introducing the New Biosocial Landscape

For many decades, the study of society and the study of biology have been estranged from one another. This Handbook provides the first comprehensive overview of the extent to which, and how quickly, we are moving beyond the charged debates that characterized much of the biological and social thought of the twentieth century. In this Handbook we show how nuanced attention to both the biological and the social sciences opens up novel perspectives on some of the most significant sociological, anthropological, philosophical, and biological questions of our era. Our central assertion is that the life sciences, broadly conceived, are currently moving toward a more social view of biological processes, just as the social sciences are beginning to reincorporate notions of the biological body into their investigations.

Situating the biosocial: Empirical engagements with environmental epigenetics from the lab to the clinic

Few life science research fields have met with as ambivalent a response in the social sciences as environmental epigenetics, an emerging yet influential research area exploring the interactions between gene expression and the environment. The conceptual and experimental models emerging from this field have sparked great excitement as well as skepticism in Science & Technology Studies (STS) and neighboring fields (Pickersgill, 2017), with many researchers expressing both. On the one hand, researchers have interpreted environmental epigenetics as a fundamentally novel thought style in molecular biology that recognizes the importance of the social for the biological and which could create a new ‘‘biology without biologism’’ (Meloni, 2014). On the other hand, researchers also remain skeptical as to whether a shift away from models of health risks and human development based on innate genetic characteristics toward a focus on acquired epigenetic modifications really indicates a less biocentric approach to human biology (Waggonner and Uller, 2015). While a variety of publications have debated these questions, few studies as yet exist that have empirically explored the practices central to epigenetic knowledge production and its relationship to emerging understandings of biology, health, and disease risk. This special issue attends to this important gap in current research. The nascent field of environmental epigenetics explores how a range of environmental exposures and social experiences, such as toxins, food, and stress, affect gene expression via epigenetic modification. While much epigenetic research is concerned with the basic processes of epigenetic cell differentiation that enable the creation of a multicellular body out of the genome of a single fertilized ovum, environmental epigenetics aims to provide a novel mechanistic link between biological processes and social and material life experiences. This research aims to provide models of how socio-material environments dynamically shape the translation of genetic information into the living structures of our bodies and minds, influencing health and well-being.