Differential Susceptibility – Are Some Brains More Plastic Than Others?

Ever heard of the idea that for some illnesses and disorders to develop, you need to have an inherited risk factor plus environmental stress? It’s known commonly as the diathesis-stress model (diathesis basically meaning predisposition), and it’s a common explanation for a large range of phenomena, from schizophrenia to serial murder.  In this model, both diathesis and stress need to be present for the illness to arise. This has been the prevailing view for some time, but a few researchers, such as Jay Belsky and Michael Pluess of Birkbeck University, are now making a slightly different case (1). They don’t say that the diathesis-stress model is incorrect, rather, that it is incomplete. read more

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