How Teratogens Affect Human Development Research Paper

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The purpose of this assignment is to explain how the four principles of teratogens affect development in relation to the principles of reaction range and gene-relations. With reaction range referring to the range of a phenotypic expression for a genotype, considering environmental factors, there are links between reaction range and gene environments. Heredity and environment together can determine the direction and effect on development. The concept of reaction range is the understanding that a genotype can manifest itself to a specific environment when development takes place. Specific kinds of environments influence specific kinds of development. With gene-environment relations, parents are the source of their children’s genes and the source of their …show more content…
It also depends on the quality of the rearing environment to show that genotypes can be associated with quite different phenotypes depending on both the level of intellectual stimulation and the environment itself. Gene-environment relations consist of three common relationships with the last being a process or “Niche-Picking”. The first is when parents pass on their genotypes and provide the environment to support them. The second is when the individual extracts different responses from their environment. The third is when the individual seeks out the environment suitable to their genotype. The last is when the individual purposely selects the environment suitable to its genotype. With the four principles of how teratogens work, a teratogen is any element that would disrupt a normal pre-natal development of a child. This includes diseases, drugs, environment, and the biological susceptibility of a mother and her fetus due to these teratogens. With the ingestion of a teratogen the impact would depend on the genotype of the child. Teratogens change over the course of the pre-natal development and the time of gestation is very important as well as how many teratogens the mother has exposed herself