Lyman Wynne was a US participant of the following research:

Wahlberg et al (1997-Gene-environment interaction in vulnerability to schizophrenia: findings from the Finnish Adoptive Family Study of Schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry 154:355-362) found a significant association between communication deviance in adoptive parents and thought disorder in those children thought to be at genetic high risk for schizophrenia, having had a biological mother with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, but not in low risk adoptees. They believed this is consistent with genetic control of sensitivity to the environment.  Importantly, there was no difference in the presence of communication deviance in the adoptive parents of high risk versus low risk adoptees, thus suggesting that the adoptees at high risk did not have a special impact of increasing the communication deviance in their adoptive parents.  Tienari and colleagues (2002) research has demonstrated that healthy environments are neuroprotective and unhealthy rearing environments are neurodisorganizing, particularly in more vulnerable individuals. This genetic diathesis need not be seen apart from environmental influence.  Research has consistently demonstrated the noxious effects of prenatal stress on the developing fetal neuroaxis. This potential source of variance, as well as any history of substance abuse in the biological mother during pregnancy, would need to be controlled before one could validly posit a ‘genetic’ diathesis.Tienari et al (2002) demonstrated that both genetics and environment add to MR (morbid risk). These investigators made the very important observation:

“Genotype-environment interaction (G X E) can be defined as a genetic control of sensitivity to environmental factors, or environmental control of gene expression. Thus, some genotypes are more likely than others to develop disease in the event of exposure to certain environmental factors. 
In the case of genotype-environment interaction, diseases will tend to cluster in families not because of a direct genetic effect, but because relatives are more vulnerable to the risk-increasing effect of a prevalent environmental risk factor. It is possible that neither the genetic susceptibility nor the risk factor can influence the disease risk by itself, but risk is increased when both are present. These and other examples are important in that they illustrate that a genotype associated with a disorder may not indicate any genetic role in the causal pathway to the disorder but may identify who is or is not susceptible to an environmental causal factors.” (p.36).

This obit of Lyman Wynne appeared in today's NY Times. He, along with P. Tienari and colleagues demonstrated genetic control of sensitivity to the environment or environmental control of gene expression-Tienari seemed to emphasize the latter.
Brian Koehler

January 27, 2007
Lyman Wynne, 83, a Leader in Research on Mental Illnesses, Dies

By BENEDICT CAREY

Dr. Lyman C. Wynne, a psychiatrist and psychologist whose research helped lay the foundation for family-based therapies for mental disorders, died on Jan. 17 in Bethesda, Md. He was 83.  The cause was cancer, his daughter Christine Wynne said.

Dr. Wynne’s studies of families coping with mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, prompted therapists to include family members as allies in treatment plans when possible, and also clarified the understanding of how genetics influences mental disorders’ progression.

His research was “essential to debunking the blaming notion that a child’s early family environment, particularly the mother, causes schizophrenia,” said Dr. Eric D. Caine, chairman of the psychiatry department at the University of Rochester, where Dr. Wynne was a professor for more than 20 years.

In recent years Dr. Wynne, with Dr. Pekka Tienari, Dr. Karl-Erik Wahlberg and others, published findings from a landmark study of Finnish adoptees at risk of developing schizophrenia, demonstrating that stressful social environments can increase the likelihood that genetically vulnerable people will develop the disorder.

“His main contribution was to use social environment as a support and help in treatment of severe disorders,” said Susan H. McDaniel, director of the Wynne Center for Family Research, based at the University of Rochester and founded and financed by Dr. Wynne’s family.

Dr. Wynne was born Lyman Carroll Wind in Tyler, Minn., on Sept. 17, 1923, to a struggling farming couple. He moved to Duluth at 12 and lived with relatives through high school.

He won a scholarship to Harvard and graduated with a medical degree in psychiatry. While at Harvard he changed his surname to Wynne, and married Adele Rogerson. He later earned a doctorate in social psychology, and worked during the 1950s and ’60s at the National Institute of Mental Health, in Bethesda.

Dr. Wynne trained as a psychoanalyst during his time at the institute, and his work — together with that of other theorists working independently — helped establish family therapy approaches.

Dr. Wynne is survived by five children, Christine Wynne of Lake Oswego, Ore.; Randy Wynne of Tampa, Fla.; Sara Wynne of Oakland, Calif.; Barry Wind of Bethesda; and Jonathan Wynne of Brooklyn; a sister, Nadine Tornquist of Minneapolis; and five grandchildren.

He had his own family therapy practice for much of his career, and his wife joined him as a therapist when their children were grown. She died in 2003.

Copyright 2007, The New York Times Company

Brian Koehler PhD
New York University