Do we inherit the quirks, flaws, or extraordinary abilities of our ancestors? Do you think that a person can transmit to his children the emotional anguish that he has suffered throughout his life? Science offers us interesting answers.
In 2013, a curious experiment was carried out with mice. A group of them was trained to develop an aversion to one type of smell. Later, when these animals had offspring, it was discovered that the offspring felt the same distress towards this type of odor stimulus. In other words, they had inherited their parents’ fear without having had the same experience.
We understand genetic memory as that phenomenon in which an individual inherits memories or abilities without having been previously exposed to any type of experience. We know that this fact is appreciated in the animal kingdom. It is as if certain traumatic experiences were imprinted in the genetic code of a species, in order to facilitate the survival of the next generation.
Now, does the same thing happen in humans? Do we also inherit the fears of our parents or grandparents? Is the life of our ancestors a kind of “prologue” that configures our own history? We will begin by pointing out that this issue is still controversial for many scientists. However, we can now clarify some data.
Our genome has a system that can store the impact of certain experiences of our ancestors. This can help us or make us more vulnerable when facing certain situations.
What is (and what is not) genetic memory?
When we talk regarding genetic memory, it is common to fall into more than one mistake. To begin with, the human being cannot store memories lived by his ancestors. None of us can, for example, recall what our grandmother experienced in her childhood or what happened to our father when he turned forty.
Now, what can be transmitted from one generation to another is the emotional imprint of a traumatic experience sustained over time. We talked at the beginning of the mouse experiment. It was Emory University in Atlanta who demonstrated in a study that certain adverse experiences in mice altered the neuronal structure in their offspring, to the point of inheriting the same fear.
Something similar happens in people. We know that situations of anguish and chronic stress of parents leave an imprint on the genetic material of new generations. A paper published in Biological Psychiatry tells us regarding how a man’s stress can genetically affect his children, to the point of making them more vulnerable to adversity.
As living beings, we all carry with us a genetic imprint of what our relatives have experienced. Thus, certain facts can vary the genes and with them the phenotype of an organism. That is, our physiology and behavior.
Positive and negative experiences sustained over time trace different gene expression profiles in various brain areas associated with long-term memory. However, how this emotional imprint is genetically inherited to another generation is a process that we do not yet understand.
Epigenetics and the case of Holocaust survivors
When it comes to understanding genetic memory, it is essential to talk regarding epigenetics. This concept refers precisely to how an individual’s experiences can change the way their DNA is expressed, and how that variation can be passed on to the next generation.
In other words, what is produced is a variation in the genes, but without altering the DNA code itself. They change some chemical labels and that can make our adaptation to the environment better… Or worse. Thus, a striking example of epigenetic transmission is in what we know as intergenerational trauma.
To illustrate this phenomenon we can resort to one of the most studied facts: the impact of the Second World War. An investigation carried out in Israel by Dr. Natan Kellermann talks regarding how the experiences of the Holocaust survivors did not remain only in their minds and bodies. That suffering transcended. And it did in subsequent generations.
What is striking is that, while some descendants show greater vulnerability to stress, others are more resilient. Each person faced those extreme experiences in a different way. Thus, this attitude and coping mechanisms were inherited by their children.
Psychobiologist Bea Van Den Bergh states that suffering from high levels of stress and anxiety for a certain time can “reprogram” certain biological systems in fetuses, predisposing them to mental disorders.
What our ancestors bequeathed to us
Language can be considered, in part, as a partial feature of genetic memory. All of us are predisposed to communication thanks to the evolutionary and physiological development of our ancestors. But not only that. Although it is known that there is no genetic predisposition for a child to speak the language of her parents, there is a small aspect that we can appreciate.
There are studies that show us how languages such as Mandarin and Vietnamese (in which the tone is decisive) show a variation in the gene to favor that correct pronunciation. For example, the consequence would be that it would be easier for a baby born in Vietnam to learn the tonality required for that language than one born in Buenos Aires.
In short, our ancestors bequeathed us aspects of the most amazing, some extraordinary and others less kind, it is true. Given this evidence, only one nuance can be added. The biological predisposes us and the environmental often determines us. This means that while one can inherit parental stress, the predisposition is not 100 percent. There is a risk, not a cause-effect.
However, living in a family environment marked by constant abuse and mistreatment does have a direct effect on the human being. Few emerge unscathed from childhood trauma, although this does not mean that we are eternal captives of that suffering. There are always resources, strategies and support that we can request to treat those wounds of yesterday.
Wounds that should be healed so as not to transmit to our children.
Source: The Mind is Wonderful
