Stress, Recovery, and Epigenetic Transmission: Psychological Mechanisms and Implications for Education and Intergenerational Health
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Youth suffer due to chronic psychological stress, which affects cognition and mental health. Stress effects may be mediated by epigenetic mechanisms, such as DNA methylation, histone modulation, telomere dynamics, and be transmitted through the generations. There is still some evidence that is missing on the topic of stress, recovery, and epigenetics in education.Objective: The present scoping review is a map of evidence that provides the relationship between psychological stress, recovery, and epigenetic modifications among youth aged between three years to eighteen years; methodological gaps; and policy implications of education.Methods: The literature based on systematic search of five databases (2020-2025) was found. In accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidelines, fifty studies were evaluated in terms of quality with AMSTAR 2, Joanna Briggs Institute, and Newcastle-Ottawa scales.Results: DNA methylation patterns suggestive of inflammation, worse cognitive functioning, and faster biological aging in adolescents were linked with socioeconomic deprivation. Epigenetic buffering potential is demonstrated on sleep, physical activity, and mindfulness, but there is no dose-response. Multigenerational transmission in animals has been exhibited in four generations; in humans, evidence exists, but the transmission is still weak due to confounding factors. Conclusion: There should be no-regret policies put into practice by the educational policy; that is, sleep-protective schedules, workload pacing, rest-recovery spaces, with higher priority to high-stress schools. Convergent research involving psychology, epigenetics, pedagogy, and ethics is able to contribute to causal knowledge whilst considering the needs in development and the ethical limits.KeywordsAcademic stress, epigenetics, DNA methylation, recovery, intergenerational transmission, adolescent health, educational policy, precautionary principle
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.010 | 0.021 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".