Studies show memories in offspring may be impacted by parental experiences

[Louigi Verona]

Guys, bumped upon an article:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-12-memories-offspring-impacted-parental.html


Sounds kinda weird. Kinda like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism

Did anyone read the actual article?

 

[Louigi Verona]

Anyone?

 

[marplots]

I read it. Thought it was good science.

 

[Orphia Nay]

We've been discussing this at the Australasian Skeptics Forum.

http://australasianskeptics.info/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1892

I came here hoping for more discussion. Bump!

 

[Louigi Verona]

Well, the biologist in our team says that if this is a statistical study - meaning that there is a statistical difference between two groups - then this does not say much, but if a control group has NO inheritance at all and the other does have - then this is more like it.

It is not clear from the abstract what was there exactly. Do you see my point?

 

[ThunderChunky]

Well, the biologist in our team says that if this is a statistical study - meaning that there is a statistical difference between two groups - then this does not say much, but if a control group has NO inheritance at all and the other does have - then this is more like it.

It is not clear from the abstract what was there exactly. Do you see my point?

I haven't fully read the paper yet. But basically they are saying that if male mice are trained to fear a specific odor, their offspring will be more sensitive to that odor (not necessarily fear it, but are able to detect lower levels). The mechanism they propose is that the major receptor for that odor is expressed at higher levels in the offspring of the trained mice. More receptor means more sensitivity. There are no actual genetic changes going on, but there are epigenetic changes happening in the regulatory elements that control the receptor gene.

Previous studies have shown similar inheritance of epigenetic changes.

Paternally induced transgenerational environmental reprogramming of metabolic gene expression in mammals.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21183072

 

[Orphia Nay]

Yes, the articles I've read raise a number of questions. (I haven't read the actual study.)

Here, it says, "The offspring of trained mice were "able to detect and respond to far less amounts of odour... suggesting they are more sensitive" to it, Ressler told AFP of the findings published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. They did not react the same way to other odours, and compared to the offspring of non-trained mice, their reaction to the cherry blossom whiff was about 200 percent stronger, he said."

But I'm not sure how they measured that.

Here, it says, "The offspring also had more M71 receptors in their brains than did mice born from parents who had not had the smell conditioning and were more sensitive to it. "There was more real estate devoted to this particular odorant receptor, suggesting that there's something in the sperm that is informing or allowing that information to be inherited," Dias says. DNA sequencing of sperm from the grandfather mice and their sons also revealed epigenetic marks on the gene encoding M71 that weren't seen in control mice."

This raises the question to me of whether the receptors were larger or smaller in the grandsons compared to the sons.