Memories can be passed down to later generations through genetic switches that allow offspring to inherit the experience of their ancestors, year old research says.
We do pitru tarpan. Satisfying subtle presence of all ancestors. Through them, do we get messages to activate or deactivate specific genes so that we can leverage benefit of their experiences in same situations? I strongly believe in it.
Well, let the fools of modern science prove it. But we should not wait for them.
😀
Prepare yourself for Shradha paksha of 2014. Learn your roots and try to follow them. Forget about material benefits. Help your ancestors in their spiritual journey. Help yourself in your spiritual journey.
Research
Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations
https://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n1/full/nn.3594.html
Using olfactory molecular specificity, we examined the inheritance of parental traumatic exposure, a phenomenon that has been frequently observed, but not understood. We subjected F0 mice to odor fear conditioning before conception and found that subsequently conceived F1 and F2 generations had an increased behavioral sensitivity to the F0-conditioned odor, but not to other odors. When an odor (acetophenone) that activates a known odorant receptor (Olfr151) was used to condition F0 mice, the behavioral sensitivity of the F1 and F2 generations to acetophenone was complemented by an enhanced neuroanatomical representation of the Olfr151 pathway. Bisulfite sequencing of sperm DNA from conditioned F0 males and F1 naive offspring revealed CpG hypomethylation in the Olfr151 gene. In addition, in vitro fertilization, F2 inheritance and cross-fostering revealed that these transgenerational effects are inherited via parental gametes. Our findings provide a framework for addressing how environmental information may be inherited transgenerationally at behavioral, neuroanatomical and epigenetic levels.
The Family Tree Of Phobia: Epigenetics Explains How We Inherit Fear From Our Ancestors
http://www.medicaldaily.com/family-tree-phobia-epigenetics-explains-how-we-inherit-fear-our-ancestors-264134
Fear can modify our DNA and influence the behavior of future generations, researchers find. According to a Nature Neuroscience study, when an ancestor endured a terrifying experience – and managed to survive – their genetic machinery kept note of it, manifesting as a phobia that gets passed down to subsequent kin.
To show this, researchers exposed mice to the smell of cherry-blossom in a panic-inducing situation. The so-called odor fear conditioning makes the mouse associate the cherry-blossom smell with a traumatic event to the point that a fear response occurs when they encounter the odor on its own. When female mice acquired this form of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) before conception, the next two generations of mice still exhibited “behavioral sensitivity” towards the cherry-blossom odor despite never being exposed to it before, the authors report.
The study verified that this automatic fearful behavior was inherited rather than taught by finding that mice that were conceived via artificial insemination and fostered by mice they weren’t related to still exhibited this sensitivity to the cherry-blossom odor.
“The fact that these changes persisted after IVF, cross-fostering and across two generations is indicative of biological inheritance,” Brian Dias and Dr Kerry Ressler, researchers at Emory University, Atlanta, conclude in their study. “The second generation mice that we tested are a full and complete generation removed from the environmental perturbation of their parent; as such, our observations suggest a transgenerational phenomenon.”
