[HN Gopher] Can you inherit memories from your ancestors?
___________________________________________________________________
Can you inherit memories from your ancestors?
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 113 points
Date : 2024-06-17 12:47 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| ch4s3 wrote:
| This is such an odd preoccupation of places like the guardian and
| has a lot of the hallmarks of the discredited recovered memory
| movement/therapy[1][2]. There's never any discussion of epigentic
| changes that effect somatic cells vs gametes, or even of the
| competing definitions of epigenetic changes.
|
| Here's a quote from the article:
|
| > Scientists working in the emerging field of epigenetics have
| discovered the mechanism that allows lived experience and
| acquired knowledge to be passed on within one generation
|
| This is obviously such a nonsense interpretation of epigenetic
| changes that it's hard to take anything in the article seriously.
|
| Obviously there's real science happening around epigenetics and
| there are interesting findings, reporting like this is a really
| big leap.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered-memory_therapy
|
| [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/opinion/recovered-
| memory-...
| moralestapia wrote:
| >This is obviously such a nonsense interpretation of epigenetic
| changes that it's hard to take anything in the article
| seriously.
|
| No one (including you) really knows the whole extent of
| epigenetic effects, so I would suggest you give it another
| read.
|
| We are still at (estimate) 10% known / 90% unknown in Biology.
| Source: Biologist for 20 years now.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I read the article, the linked study, and two studies citing
| the linked study. The claim that memories or "lived
| experience" is inherited is not supported by the study.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| Erm...memories -- by any biologically reasonable definition--
| are separate from epigenetic changes. No serious researcher
| would conflate the two, other than perhaps hippy-dippy
| 'biologists' who struggled through 'Physics for Poets', as
| undergrads. Source: Biophysicist for 30 years now.
| moralestapia wrote:
| And yet ...
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2248710/
|
| Btw, read the site guidelines. This is a place for
| discourse, not berating others.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Follow up work has not held up the 2008 article you
| shared[1], and has in fact shown that larvae do not carry
| over memories through metamorphosis.
|
| [1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/insect-brains-melt-
| and-rewire....
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| Further, even if the study had held up, there is a vast
| difference between memories retained through an
| individual metamorphosis event, and passing memories
| along to offspring resulting from sexual reproduction.
| The OP fails to recognize this obvious point.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Yes, I completely agree.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >The OP fails to recognize this obvious point.
|
| I don't. You're attacking a straw man.
|
| You wrote,
|
| >Erm...memories -- by any biologically reasonable
| definition-- are separate from epigenetic changes.
|
| I replied with a study showing the opposite to be true.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| No, I said, "There is a vast difference between memories
| retained through an individual metamorphosis event, and
| passing memories along to offspring resulting from sexual
| reproduction. The OP fails to recognize this obvious
| point."
|
| You're selectively quoting and then re-arranging the
| quotes to attempt to make yourself look better.
|
| Honestly, for someone to be posting this nonsense with a
| link to their LinkedIn professional profile in their bio
| is kind of career suicide. You've inadvertently stumbled
| into an argument on a IT tech website with people who are
| bona fide life scientists and are embarrassed and are
| clumsily trying to save face.
| moralestapia wrote:
| My career is doing just fine, actually. Like, better than
| ever and I'm not making this up.
|
| Feel free to add me on LinkedIn, I have no issue in
| people knowing who I am; should I be scared or anything?
| Lol. You should try not being anonymous, just a
| suggestion, :).
|
| You said:
|
| "Memory [...] is separate from epigenetic changes"
|
| I replied with a study that seems to suggest otherwise.
| That's not really hard to follow ...
|
| >IT tech website
|
| Hmm naw man, Hacker News is _way_ more than that. Also,
| why would I be embarrassed? You are just projecting too
| much unto others, chill.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >and has in fact shown that larvae do not carry over
| memories through metamorphosis
|
| Nope.
|
| The 2008 study is _" the first to demonstrate
| conclusively that associative memory survives
| metamorphosis in Lepidoptera"_.
|
| The article you cited does not disprove this, but rather
| it shows the brain structure of (some, at least) insects
| get completely re-arranged before/after their transition
| to adulthood.
|
| For me, this only makes the 2008 study _more_
| interesting, since the memories could still persist, even
| after a completely new brain architecture (!).
| ch4s3 wrote:
| That 2008 study has never been reproduced and the piece
| in Quanta points towards it being impossible. Our current
| understanding of memory is that it has a physical basis,
| so that 2008 study is likely wrong.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Appealing to authority is one of the most primitive
| logical fallacies out there.
|
| But if we're going to do that, let's do it properly and
| choose the peer reviewed article written by experts in
| the field over a blog post written by a "science
| communicator".
|
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| Ha. You tried to appeal to authority by insinuating
| you're a professional biologist. First, you're not. You
| appear to be primarily an app developer, not a
| researcher. Which is why I mocked you by pulling my 30
| years on you.
| moralestapia wrote:
| I definitely would not call myself a "professional
| biologist" as that would make a whole room burst with
| laughs, lol. So, you're right on that.
|
| But I do work as a researcher, publish some interesting
| papers from time to time and, yes, I think I'm also an
| "app developer", in the sense that I've made some apps?
|
| These kind of arguments you make really come across as
| quite infantile, to be honest. I'm going to have to stop
| engaging with you because no substantial value is added
| to the conversation while you already crossed the line to
| personal attacks, several times, even after you've been
| told about it and pointed to this site's rules. Find
| somebody else to engage with your tantrums, I'm out.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| You serve up a distasteful dish of arrogance and
| ignorance. You drop into a conversation implying you're a
| professional biologist ("Source: biologist for 20 year")
| when you're not - that's the arrogance. You then make
| wildly inaccurate statements any real life scientist
| knows isn't true for cheap internet points from software
| folks who don't know any better- that's the ignorance.
| You finish it off with a dollop of childishness on top by
| complaining when actual scientists call you out on your
| nonsense. Do better. I know you can.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Again the 2008 study has never been reproduced to my
| knowledge and defies everything we know about how memory
| is stored, so I think skepticism of such an incredible
| claim is warranted.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| I'm not berating you. I'm ridiculing you. Anyone with an
| actual 20 years experience as a biologist would not be
| making such outlandish statements. From your profile, you
| seem like more of an app developer than a genuine
| biologist anyway.
| moralestapia wrote:
| This is definitely over the line.
|
| cc @dang?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Eh, I mean what other explaination is there for "instinct". You
| have genetic and epigenetic factors that give something a
| predisposition to respond to stimuli in a specific way. Makes
| sense to me, but it's just a theory (as most things are) and we
| have a lot more to learn.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| There's a big difference between DNA methylation on gametes
| leading to behavioral predispositions in offspring and the
| claim that memories and experiences are inherited.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It depends on what you mean by memories. I'm not a fan of
| the Guardian as I've seen stuff editorialized to the point
| it conveys misinformation. This article is poorly written
| to the point the writer doesn't seem to understand the
| topic.
|
| "Epigenetic memories" is different than colloquial
| "memories". The article seems to completely miss this. And
| of course people who haven't been exposed to that domain
| specific concept are likely to misinterpret it.
| everdrive wrote:
| It's intentionally misleading given that "memory" has a
| common understanding. If they simply wanted to keep the
| article approachable, they could even just simply write
| "they're analogous to memories, but don't work like
| memory as most people understand it."
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Memory is the wrong word to use even like that. To the
| extent that there is DNA methylation in gametes, it will
| up or down regulate the expression of existing genes in
| the DNA. Nothing is created de-novo as in memory, you
| can't look at the resultant gene regulation and look
| backwards to a cause.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Then please go tell all the publications and researcher
| that they are wrong for using the term "Epigenetic
| memory" in thier domain. Or are you a domain expert (in
| the minority if you are)?
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The study[1] mentioned in the guardian does not contain
| the phrase "epigenetic memory", and only contains the
| word memory twice, and both uses are of the conventional
| definition. The author in the guardian is misrepresenting
| the science.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3923835/
| giantg2 wrote:
| I agree that the article is garage. The point of
| contention is around epigenetic memory being a thing or
| not. It is a common term used in the domain, such as in
| this paper and others.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7225062/
| ch4s3 wrote:
| You could probably replace the word memory in that paper
| with maguffin and not change the meaning. It's totally
| unconnected to the common definition or the use in
| neurology. I guess what I'm getting at is that this kind
| of reporting obscures what's going on intentionally for
| the political aims of the guardian. Which I think is
| lousy.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yes, and that's true of computer "memory" as well.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >what's going on intentionally for the political aims of
| the guardian
|
| Ok, now this is something!
|
| So, please enlighten me, what could be the political
| agenda being pushed by an article pondering around
| whether memories can be inherited or not?
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Vague notions of "inherited trauma" are a regular hobby
| horse of people in the broader political sphere of the
| guardian at the moment.
| biotinker wrote:
| I'm not a domain expert in epigenetics, but in grad
| school for bioinformatics I did a bunch of research on
| nucleosome positioning[0] which is epigenetics-adjacent.
|
| "Epigenetic memory" is the term of art I was taught in
| grad school. Either they've changed that in the last 10
| years, or ch4s3 is attempting to assert a different
| definition of "memory" than the one used in the field.
|
| They are also incorrect. DNA methylation is an actual
| methyl group chemically binding to an actual DNA
| nucleotide, and staying there. When we flip a bit on a
| hard drive platter we call that "memory" as well.
|
| [0] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MJO2lYIAAAA
| J&hl=en
| squidbeak wrote:
| Instinct is totally different from memory.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| That's precisely the problem outside of the lack of any
| direct evidence of the underlying mechanism.
| conradolandia wrote:
| How do you know?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Which "memory" are you talking about? "Epigenetic memory"
| is different, and it's related to, and influences,
| instinct.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Well, you've got brain wiring that causes you to respond to
| stimuli in a certain way. A small portion of that wiring is
| genetic (e.g. opposite sex attraction, fear of heights,
| disgust at certain smells), and the rest comes from prior
| sensory exposure (i.e. is learnt during your own lifetime).
| everdrive wrote:
| Is there a good, real-world example of how we think epigenetics
| works? I've seen a lot of mentions that "epigenetics _proves_
| that intergenerational trauma is real!" -- and at least to my
| eyes this feels like a stretch of the science. For instance,
| why are epigenetic effects inherited? Why is it not the case
| that in environment, the parents experience one environment and
| so some genes are expressed. (ie, epigenetics happens based on
| that environment) and then the children are in the a different
| environment, and so different genes are expressed.
|
| Do I have a wholly-incorrect understanding of epigenetics? Is
| there a clear and simple example of an epigenetic mechanism?
| gmm1990 wrote:
| just look up dna methylation
| everdrive wrote:
| Thank you, I will do so.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| It seems pretty clear for example that being an alcoholic can
| cause DNA methylation in your gametes such that your
| offspring have a higher risk above and beyond regular genetic
| factors to become an alcoholic. However that is at a
| population level and there are complicating factors.
|
| Inherited trauma is totally unsupported but up or down
| regulated gene expression based on environmental factors
| before your conception are supported by some compelling
| evidence.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I'm trying on a mental model re: Epigenetics. How does this
| look:
|
| Your genes are a recipe book, not a blueprint. What recipe
| is chosen is based somewhat on environmental effects. When
| you reproduce, you shuffle together the parents book + the
| earmarks on the pages.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I'm not sure if that totally fits. There's a kind of
| signal amplification or de-amplification happening.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Yeah I was using dogear as a way of signalling "prefer
| this page"
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Yeah, I assumed that, but down regulating isn't well
| captured in that metaphor.
| margalabargala wrote:
| > Inherited trauma is totally unsupported
|
| This is only true if you take a pretty narrow definition of
| the word "trauma".
|
| One example would be an ancestor experiencing famine, who
| then passes down epigenetic markers have marked effects on
| their offspring in terms of health, longevity, and
| behavior.
|
| Here's a Nature article on it:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41418-023-01159-4
|
| > "Collectively, these discoveries infer the existence of
| "a heritable memory of starvation/hunger"."
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The Dutch Hunger cohort study is highly suspect. However,
| the idea that someone is literally starving to death just
| before or during gestation having some knock on genetic
| effects is not all that surprising. But again, the phrase
| "inherited trauma", as it's typically used is bunk.
|
| Also the phrase "a heritable memory" is kind of nonsense
| even with respect to epigenetic changes. Again what we're
| talking about with epigenetics is up or down regulation
| of your existing genes, not some new information being
| encoded.
| margalabargala wrote:
| I found the research about the Chinese Suihua cohort to
| be more compelling.
|
| I fully agree that someone starving to death right around
| the time of pregnancy could have some knock on effects;
| this is discussing changes in the _following_ generation,
| the ones that are tens of years removed from the
| starvation event.
|
| > Also the phrase "a heritable memory" is kind of
| nonsense even with respect to epigenetic changes. Again
| what we're talking about with epigenetics is up or down
| regulation of your existing genes, not some new
| information being encoded.
|
| I wonder if you are missing the forest for the trees here
| somewhat. We're talking about the up/down regulation of
| specific genes based on specific methylation patterns in
| DNA that are present only because of some event that
| occurred. It's not memory in the sense of "I remember
| what I had for breakfast this morning", but it's memory
| in the sense of "these methylation patterns exist because
| their genesis was triggered by a specific event in the
| last few generations". That _IS_ new information being
| encoded, just in a more fuzzy way than with neurons or
| computer memory.
|
| I would need more convincing to think the phrases you
| mention are nonsense/bunk. Could you perhaps articulate
| the definitions you're using for "trauma" and "memory"? I
| think we are using different definitions, as it seems
| clear what is meant by the phrases as used.
|
| EDIT: what issue do you take with the Dutch hunger study?
| I hadn't heard criticism about it before, and I just
| googled "dutch hunger cohort study criticism" and found
| nothing.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >just googled "dutch hunger cohort study criticism" and
| found nothing
|
| x2
|
| @ch4s3 is making some pretty strong claims here and
| there, for which I do not see the evidence either.
|
| Don't take me wrong, I don't mean to suggest he's just
| being a quack; but rather, this is an invitation for him
| to substantiate his knowledge. The more we learn the
| better, :).
| ch4s3 wrote:
| So check this study out[1] it uses the Dutch hunger
| winter families cohort day as a starting point, but uses
| a web based form to follow up on obesity. This is
| obviously not going to yield great results. And the
| findings show that only the adult children of famine
| exposed fathers are more likely to be obese which seems a
| little add. It has nearly 600 citations.
|
| My criticism is that a lot of studies based on the data
| to lazy things like this, draw big conclusions, and get a
| lot of citations but there just isn't much to them.
|
| [1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C3
| 9&q=%E2...
|
| Wooos, posted the wrong link earlier. https://obgyn.onlin
| elibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1471-0...
| moralestapia wrote:
| The link you posted is a list of "About 1,870 results".
|
| I really don't have the time or energy to go through all
| of them, tbh.
|
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Sorry, here's the correct link https://obgyn.onlinelibrar
| y.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1471-0...
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I've never read the Chinese Suihua cohort study so I'm
| not going to speculate or comment on it.
|
| I think "in the last few generations" is a little
| speculative. There's strong evidence for epigenetic
| changes being passed from parents, but going further back
| the evidence is much weaker.
|
| > what issue do you take with the Dutch hunger study
|
| It's a really narrow study of a rather genetically
| homogeneous group picked from a really small geographic
| area and it has all of the issues of any retrospective
| study. The outcome could just be random chance. If you
| look at any small closely related group you're just going
| to find some sort of weird clustering, even if it varies
| in that group. If similar epigenetic markers showed up in
| other populations with similar well documented
| circumstances it would be stronger.
| mikhailfranco wrote:
| The other cohort mentioned is Overkalix:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96verkalix_study
| biophysboy wrote:
| The basic idea is that genome modifications can be inherited
| with the genome. Methylation is one example; histone mods are
| another. If you want specific examples, I'd recommend
| focusing on a specific type of modification and searching
| "fill-in-the-blank inheritance", to avoid the more dramatic
| pop science.
| directevolve wrote:
| I'm in a comp bio PhD studying epigenetics in development and
| disease. Epigenetics can be thought of as the set of
| biochemical mechanisms other than the linear sequence of DNA
| that store and respond to information to control cell
| behavior. This is how normal development from a single zygote
| to an adult organism is controlled, why cells vary so much
| despite having (mutations/mosaicism aside) the same DNA, how
| cells respond to changing biochemical conditions, and where
| cancer comes from.
|
| The classic example of epigenetics - of stable information
| transfer between cell generations not based on DNA sequence -
| is methylation of cytosines. Here's the simplified version.
| As you know, the DNA is based on ACTG. When you have a CG,
| the C can be methylated, which means an extra carbon is
| attached at a specific position on the molecule. That extra
| carbon gets 'copied' when the DNA is duplicated during
| mitosis and gets passed to the daughter cells. Yet it can be
| added or erased during the cell's lifetime. It typically
| works to block proteins responsible for transcribing genes
| into mRNA from binding to the gene, so the gene is silenced
| when it is methylated. This gives a way to transmit patterns
| of gene expression across generations of cells.
|
| This mark is extremely well-studied and understanding
| everything about DNA methylation is beyond this humble PhD
| student. But there are also extremely mechanisms for erasing
| and/or resetting certain aspects of cell state during mitosis
| or meiosis, including RNA, the proteome, and methylation
| state. We can't take it for granted that just because there's
| a mechanism by which biochemical information could be
| transmitted that it actually is (or that it isn't).
|
| A common source for the idea of intergenerational trauma
| being supported by epigenetic evidence is the Dutch hunger
| winter [1]. The idea is that an experience that parents had
| in utero seems to have had an effect on the physical
| development of their children, in a way that's specific to
| parental sex. I'm willing to say "sure, that effect could be
| real and there could be an epigenetic explanation." But AFAIK
| we don't know specifically what that hypothetical mechanism
| would have been.
|
| Note that the bod(y|ies) of the mother and child are
| interchanging material and engaging in biochemical crosstalk
| constantly during gestation, so there is abundant opportunity
| for environmental influences on the mother to have lifelong
| impacts on the child. Since the child's body will in turn
| engage in the same 'dialog' with the child's own children
| during fertilization and gestation, it's entirely possible
| for environmental influences on generation 1 to impact
| generation 3 as mediated by generation 2 via an in utero
| exposure.
|
| All that said, I have a lot of uncertainty about what our
| priors ought to be on how important such hypothetical
| mechanisms might be. I think that in the coming decades,
| we'll make huge progress in understanding development and
| disease within an individual's body through an epigenetic
| lens. We will probably also see some interesting controlled
| experiments on "epigenetic inheritance" using short-lived
| model organisms, such as fruit flies or worms. Possibly we
| will collect enough epigenetic information in large-scale
| biobanks over 20-40 years that we can get a more detailed
| understanding of possible epigenetic inheritance mechanisms
| in humans, but these assays are currently quite expensive,
| and moreover there's no single measure applicable to an
| individual person, since the whole point of epigenetics is
| that the state varies across cell and tissue type.
|
| [1] https://www.ohsu.edu/school-of-medicine/moore-
| institute/dutc...
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The cohort studies around the Dutch Hunger Winter are
| really interesting but it's a huge leap to generalize from
| maternal starvation during gestation have all kinds of
| effects to some fanciful ideas of inherited trauma writ
| large.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Yeah but so many people _want_ to believe this idea. Consider
| all the history of people of "royal blood" as if that endeared
| them with the knowledge and skills of ruling. There is a whole
| industry that plays to this desire of people to "know". From
| palmistry to genetic memory, they are all bonkers.
| 47282847 wrote:
| I can not look into my genes so I know nothing about that,
| but what I can say with confidence is that trauma therapy
| continues to fundamentally change how I judge, act and react,
| and has deeply positive effects on all my relationships. I
| can totally see how that positively influences how my
| children will develop. That aspect of "passing on trauma" is
| very real. I now stay calm and regulated in most stressful
| situations, and in the few cases where I overreact I know how
| to and I have the ability to (!) make up for it later and
| correct my mistakes. And use the trigger to further heal past
| pain.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| The article is about genetic inheritance, not about
| inheritance in general.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| Definitely. People want to believe it so badly that they'll
| just throw all logic out the window. I can't find it with a
| cursory search, but I recall one case in which a person
| allegedly inherited a fear of drowning via "genetic memory"
| from her _uncle_ who drowned shortly before she was born. It
| 's essentially "psychic medium" bullshit with a veneer of
| pseudobiology. But hoo boy, does that ever play well.
|
| It's one thing to suggest that psychological or metabolic
| stress could affect the dynamics of DNA methylation in a way
| that crosses generational boundaries. It's quite another to
| identify those inherited dynamics as "memories".
| jraph wrote:
| Why yes, this stuff jumps _diagonally_. That 's called an
| epigenic memory cross-transfer. It also works backwards and
| if one of the being is dead, and affects you from your
| birth even if the event had not happened yet at the time.
| Retcon Epigenetics 101.
|
| :-)
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's easy to mistake upbringing with something inherited, or
| culture and behaviour with familial / race / appearance. I'm
| sure THAT part is partially inherited (same with the pattern
| recognition mentioned above).
| mech422 wrote:
| I always wonder how animals that aren't raised by parents know
| various things...like why do predators know bright colors are a
| 'warning' if they don't have parents to teach them? How do
| spiders know what their web 'should' look like (spider webs
| come in multiple styles...)
|
| People say 'instinct' by never mention what that means or how
| it works :-P
| AQuantized wrote:
| There's an idea of 'fixed action patterns' where certain
| behaviors are encoded in the neurology of an animal, and
| triggered by certain stimulus.
|
| For spiders then there is an action pattern that upon certain
| stimulus they will use their spinnerets begin forming a web,
| first placing anchor points and gradually building it up with
| radial threads and spiral. The exact behavior differs by
| species such that they have different resulting patterns. It
| seems possible that there is an element of 'learning' beyond
| the basic pattern as well, even in seemingly very simple
| animals.
|
| I doubt the spiders have a mental model of what their web
| looks like as such, it's more evolutionary driven genetic
| behavior, a particular neuronal pattern encoding the action
| sequence rather than an underlying fundamental understanding.
| mech422 wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| >For spiders then there is an action pattern that upon
| certain stimulus they will use their spinnerets begin
| forming a web, first placing anchor points and gradually
| building it up with radial threads and spiral.
|
| I can sorta understand stimulus causing them to start
| making a web (sorta like stimulating a mammary can cause
| lactation) - but how do it 'know' to use a radial pattern
| rather then ah-hoc mess the black widows on my porch make?
| The 'ad-hoc' pattern seems like it would be more 'likely'
| then a nice pattern? Overall, I guess it just seems like a
| rather complex pattern/behavior?
|
| Also, I guess I have a more basic question of 'what is
| instinct' if its not some sort of 'memory'? People seem to
| have an 'instinct' of the mechanics of throwing a ball, yet
| we have wildly different abilities with regards to
| accuracy, 'form', distance/speed (due to muscalture?) - it
| just seems like we have an 'instinct' for the 'simple'
| mechanical movements but not for the more complex behavior
| like throwing a ball to hit a target ?
|
| Thanks again!
| AQuantized wrote:
| The stimulus starts the fixed action pattern, but that
| action pattern includes the behavior to make the entire
| web, not just the start off the process. Different
| species of spider have different fixed action patterns
| (and different neurology underlying that, and different
| DNA underlying that neurology).
|
| I think throwing a ball is more learned, although some
| behaviors like grasping the ball may provided a fixed
| action foundation on which higher order learning builds.
| Baby humans have a grasp reflex that works in a similar
| way to the fixed action pattern described, but with a
| simpler action sequence. If you touch the palm of a
| toddler, they will instinctively tightly grasp. It's
| interesting that the grasp reflex disappears around 5
| years old, so the fixed neuronal pattern is subsumed by
| higher order learned behavior.
| mech422 wrote:
| >>includes the behavior to make the entire web, not just
| the start off the process.
|
| Thats where I get stuck..the 'behavior' has to account
| for different sizes of webs (the spider might be in a
| tight space, or a more open space), etc.
|
| That just seems like an incredibly complex behavior to
| encode...Cells are supposedly 'simple' organisms but they
| manage to create/manage such complex behaviors...it's
| mind blowing..
|
| Thanks!
| quectophoton wrote:
| > I can sorta understand stimulus causing them to start
| making a web (sorta like stimulating a mammary can cause
| lactation) - but how do it 'know' to use a radial pattern
| rather then ah-hoc mess the black widows on my porch
| make? The 'ad-hoc' pattern seems like it would be more
| 'likely' then a nice pattern? Overall, I guess it just
| seems like a rather complex pattern/behavior?
|
| My guess: It "just feels right".
|
| In the beginning (?), the species didn't have any
| "preference" and just did whatever. Some species cut the
| pizza in circles (as in, cutting out a circle from
| _inside_ the pizza, leaving a donut-shaped pizza), others
| cut squares, others cut weird shapes, etc. All over the
| place.
|
| Over time, those predisposed to cutting the pizza in a
| straight line, from border to border, passing through the
| center, began to survive slightly longer than the rest
| (for some unknown reason), becoming the dominant
| predisposition. To anyone born since then, it just felt
| right to cut the pizza that way. Not passing through the
| center of the pizza was just weird. And stopping a cut
| midway, without going all the way through, was also just
| weird.
|
| At that point the amount of cuts still varied though, so
| it was all over the place. Some cut it in half, other
| made 2 cuts (4 slices) but they were in ugly 20deg angles
| (so 2 huge slices and 2 small slices), others made
| hundreds of cuts so each piece was tiny and was annoying
| to eat, stuff like that.
|
| Over time, those who preferred to cut the pizza in 90deg
| angles started to survive slightly longer, and over time
| became the dominant predisposition.
|
| And so on and so on. With these learnings it was becoming
| easier for people to make pizza ("find food"). Pizza
| sizes increased, and so did the amount of people sharing
| a single pizza. Making it easier to attract others, and
| share a pizza with them. Meeting more people makes it
| slightly more likely to find a life partner.
|
| Time passed, same old song and dance. Now all pieces must
| be symmetrical. It was the most fair way to share. Not
| doing it this way meant the one doing the cuts was evil
| and must be avoided.
|
| Current situation: Most people cut the pizza in 8 equal-
| ish slices because it just feels right to do it that way.
| Those who don't do it that way might still reproduce, but
| are slightly more likely to be avoided because they are
| weirdos. They are also slightly less able to get food,
| because nobody wants to share their pizza with those
| weirdos, so they are slightly more likely to starve due
| to being unable to "attract" food.
|
| In that parallel universe, someone named 224hcem asks:
|
| > But how do they "know" to cut the pizza in 8 equal
| slices rather than the ad-hoc mess the teenagers next
| door make with their microwaved pizza? Overall it's way
| more effort to try to make all pieces nice and equal, and
| the movements have to be more precise meaning the brain
| calculations are more complex compared to just winging
| it.
| mech422 wrote:
| I guess I just get hung up on how such 'simple' cells can
| encode such complex behaviors...
|
| Thanks
| fsn4dN69ey wrote:
| You can basically think of insects like this as organic
| ASICs. Input in, output out. It's a biological circuit
| that just has a raw response that's hardcoded in. Kind of
| like asking how does a computer know to do "MOV". It's
| baked in to the circuit. Do trial and error trillions of
| times and some of the circuits end up functioning and
| survive.
| mech422 wrote:
| It just seems like a lot of behaviors are closer to full
| blown programs rather than a single instruction :-)
|
| And the more complex the behavior the more it blows my
| mind :-D
|
| Thanks!
|
| Thanks for the link below - it was pretty neat :-D
| fsn4dN69ey wrote:
| Yeah, the depth of biology is insane. You can even look
| closer to home - humans have built in visual mappings for
| specific shapes. https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-math-
| theory-for-why-people-...
| sliken wrote:
| It's been awhile, but I was reading about black widows.
| Apparently the better fed they are, the worse the web, so
| they don't over feed.
|
| A chaotic web is a sign that the black widow spider is
| well fed and not hungry.
| mech422 wrote:
| Huh...I didn't know that...the lil S.O.B.s on my porch
| must be really well fed - the webs are everywhere :-D
|
| Thanks
| sliken wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it's generally 1 spider per web, and I
| thought blackwidows (assuming they are still alive) take
| down the webs when done. So presumably you have quite a
| few spiders.
|
| In any case here's a discussion of said paper.
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/death-
| tra....
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Adjacent, and you've probably seen it before, but you and
| others might be interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E
| ffect_of_psychoactive_drugs_o...
|
| This is fascinating stuff.
| mech422 wrote:
| LOL - yeah, I remember seeing the spider ones and going
| "probably better then I could do stoned" :-P
| euroderf wrote:
| Sidenote: My brother the biologist tells me that cats do not
| instinctively understand that heights can be dangerous; they
| have to learn it by trial & error.
| mech422 wrote:
| Wow - that surprises me - I would have thought heights
| would be an 'instinct' thing - like water (animals know to
| try not to drown...)
| quectophoton wrote:
| To be fair, animals who _don 't_ try to avoid drowning,
| are more likely to drown before being able to reproduce.
| Probably even by trying to drink water or wash their
| face, since both mouth and nose usually lead to lungs (I
| bet there exists some weird animal where that's not the
| case).
|
| Also, humans don't instinctively understand that fire can
| be dangerous, so there's that.
| mech422 wrote:
| Heh
|
| I didn't realize people don't have an instinct about
| fire. I always thought kids touching hot stoves/fire was
| because their hands touched it before their brains
| registered 'hot! ouch!'
| randomdata wrote:
| Nine lives coupled with always landing on their feet
| didn't leave much evolutionary pressure to be afraid of
| heights.
| mech422 wrote:
| LOL :-)
| Llamamoe wrote:
| Most DNA is non-coding and encodes tweaks to which genes are
| expressed where and how. The same way evolution evolved
| reliable formation of complex body arrangements out of
| stochastic molecular processes and variations in gene
| expression based on location, nearby cells and their own
| signalling, it's done the same for neurons which are far from
| a homogenous mixture and thus can learn some
| things("instinctual behaviour") easier than others, all the
| way to it happening essentially automatically.
| mech422 wrote:
| I'm amazed by how cells know what to grow 'into' as well -
| especially since stem cells seem to be able to grow into
| just about any body part?
|
| >>and thus can learn some things("instinctual behaviour")
| easier than others
|
| I don't understand this - Isn't 'instinctual behaviour'
| something you don't have to learn? Also, I wonder if
| there's a limit to how complex a behavior can be 'encoded'?
| like bright colored animals == poisonous. That requires
| being able to tell a say a toad from a bird, what a color
| is, what colors = poison, etc? That seems like a pretty
| complex behavior...Do we have any idea what the limit is
| for complex behaviors in genes?
|
| Thanks!
| Llamamoe wrote:
| To be clear, I'm not an expert, but the way I imagine it
| is as genetically encoded biases to process information
| differently based on its colour, position, which
| neuron(s) or receptors it's coming in from, etc. that
| don't necessarily encode the entire neural circuitry for
| a behavior, but make it automatically learnable without
| the need for full-blown experiences, just as a
| consequence of the neurons developing and being exposed
| to normal environmental information at all.
| mech422 wrote:
| I guess I just get floored that such complex behaviors
| can be encoded. Like how some people seem to 'just know'
| how to draw and I can't draw a straight line with a
| ruler...
| Terr_ wrote:
| > I'm amazed by how cells know what to grow 'into' as
| well - especially since stem cells seem to be able to
| grow into just about any body part?
|
| AFAIK the current explanations for this often involve
| electrical and chemical gradients, along with "timer"
| cyclic reactions among groups of cells.
|
| A contrived example: Suppose the first progenitor cell
| buds off two children, where one is set to be "Emit Head
| signals, flee from Tail signals" and the other is "Emit
| Tail molecules, flee from Head molecules". These two
| daughter-lines promptly zip off in opposite directions,
| and now there's a kind of chemical Head-to-Tail measure
| in the middle for differently-calibrated cells to arrange
| themselves on.
|
| Then it buds off some cells that are tuned to create a
| line in-between the two poles, and those cells
| generate/follow a certain chemical "beat" in order to
| subdivide, and if the beat lasts X cycles they create X
| striped zones, which might become chunks of a spine...
| mech422 wrote:
| Thing is, it seems to me like some sort of 'master
| control' needs to know what signals to emit. Which sounds
| like it has to have a 'blueprint' of what the entire
| organism should 'look' like?
|
| I always think of some lil control room going "ok..we
| need a heart and 2 lungs...send out the heart signals,
| and send out 2 lung signals" (electrical or chemical or
| whatever the signals are)
|
| Just amazing such 'simple' organisms manage to co-
| ordinate all this stuff...
|
| Thanks
| Terr_ wrote:
| Homeobox genes [0] are relevant when it comes to pretty
| high level "heads go on that end, butts go on that end"
| stuff.
|
| There's also this parody video of _Despacito_ [1] that
| may be, er, educationally amusing.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeobox
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydqReeTV_vk
| qarl wrote:
| > People say 'instinct' by never mention what that means or
| how it works :-P
|
| Have you never been afraid of spiders or snakes?
|
| https://www.cbs.mpg.de/Fear-of-spiders-and-snakes-is-
| deeply-...
| biotinker wrote:
| I don't see any connection between the Guardian and the
| recovered memory movement.
|
| Throughout this thread you have a bit of an insistence on
| narrowly defining memory in terms of the brain, i.e. memories
| that people have.
|
| In the field of epigenetics, and in computer science, and other
| areas, "memory" more broadly means a system of encoding
| information. Which is what happens here, when methyl groups
| physically bind to an adenine or cytosine molecule, like
| flipping a bit.
|
| It's incorrect to call information stored in epigenetics
| "memories", but it's fine to call it "memory". I forgive the
| article for doing this as it's written for consumption by the
| broad public, and it's illustrative of the overall point if not
| literally correct.
|
| FYI, the author is a respected neuroscientist:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Critchlow
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > I don't see any connection between the Guardian and the
| recovered memory movement.
|
| It's a comparison.
|
| Respected or not she's making the argument the "the body
| keeps the score," which is redolent of the discredited book
| of the same name.
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| > Respected or not she's making the argument the "the body
| keeps the score," which is redolent of the discredited book
| of the same name.
|
| The body keeps the score is discredited?
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Yes, the book is by one of the original nut bags behind
| the recovered memory craze. Here[1] is an academic
| publication talking about the problems with it.
|
| [1]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16483114/
| humansareok1 wrote:
| Can memories be explicitly encoded in genes? If not then no. End
| of the story.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| To the best of my understanding, no and I'm aware of any
| proposed mechanism.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Isn't the article describing in depth how an experiment
| showed it possible or did I completely misread it? It even
| explained the mechanisms behind it?
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The article glosses over some details of a decade old
| study, that might have maybe shown that some types of
| conditioning using electrical shock might have epigenetic
| effects that persist in gametes and effect later behavior.
| The study attempts to show it indirectly and hand waves at
| the mechanisms. It doesn't test for DNA methylation or
| anything similar.
| oa335 wrote:
| They did test for and find hypomethylation.
|
| It's mentioned in the article here: > How had this
| happened? The team discovered that the DNA in the
| grandfather mouse's sperm had changed shape. ... The gene
| for this olfactory receptor had been demethylated
| (chemically tagged), ...
|
| As well as in the abstract of the linked study:
|
| > Bisulfite sequencing of sperm DNA from conditioned F0
| males and F1 naive offspring revealed CpG hypomethylation
| in the Olfr151 gene.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24292232/
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I must have missed that reading the study, and that
| certainly is a little more compelling. I'm still very
| skeptical about the way the guardian article presents the
| claims, and the lack of any mention of follow up work
| since the decade old study.
| amelius wrote:
| From TFA:
|
| > The study made use of mice's love of cherries. Typically,
| when a waft of sweet cherry scent reaches a mouse's nose, a
| signal is sent to the nucleus accumbens, causing this
| pleasure zone to light up and motivate the mouse to scurry
| around in search of the treat. The scientists exposed a group
| of mice first to a cherry-like smell and then immediately to
| a mild electric shock. The mice quickly learned to freeze in
| anticipation every time they smelled cherries. They had pups,
| and their pups were left to lead happy lives without electric
| shocks, though with no access to cherries. The pups grew up
| and had offspring of their own.
|
| > At this point, the scientists took up the experiment again.
| Could the acquired association of a shock with the sweet
| smell possibly have been transmitted to the third generation?
| It had. The grandpups were highly fearful of and more
| sensitive to the smell of cherries.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I read the underlying study. It's pretty shy on
| experimental details, and while an epigenetic change is the
| possible mechanism they don't directly show that. It's also
| a huge leap from the guardian article's claim that memories
| are inherited.
| moralestapia wrote:
| They're not claiming that, though.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The article includes this passage:
|
| > Might this new understanding increase our capacity for
| self-awareness and empathy? If we can grasp the potential
| impact of our ancestors' experiences on our own
| behaviour, might we be more understanding of others, who
| are also carrying the inherited weight of experience?
|
| They are literally refereeing to the concept of inherited
| trauma and inter-generational memory throughout the
| piece. It's a favorite hobby-horse of the guardian and
| while they are somewhat subtle here and dress it up by
| picking a very old study, they are in fact talking about
| the kind of ideas appearing in popular self help books
| like The Body Keeps the Score, and other things in their
| orbit. The author of the article in question is hawking a
| similar book on the guardian's books platform.
| moralestapia wrote:
| It has a question mark.
|
| Claims don't have question marks.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The whole article is full of similar statements, I just
| found that short paragraph illustrative.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Well, it definitely wasn't illustrative as a claim.
|
| But since there are so many such statemetns, feel free to
| post a few examples.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| This is pretty misleading:
|
| >Scientists working in the emerging field of epigenetics
| have discovered the mechanism that allows lived
| experience and acquired knowledge to be passed on within
| one generation, by altering the shape of a particular
| gene.
|
| Also pretty debatable:
|
| > or the trauma inflicted on your grandfather when he
| fled his home as a refugee, might go on to shape your
| parents' brains, their behaviours and eventually yours.
|
| Or a reference to the thoroughly academically panned The
| Body Keeps the Score:
|
| > It's not just our body that keeps the score but our
| very genes.
| keithalewis wrote:
| But never the end of clickbait.
| dmd wrote:
| Your understanding is half a century out of date.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
|
| Note that I'm not claiming here that memories can be encoded in
| genes; I'm also not making a strong claim here that memories
| can be encoded epigenetically!
|
| What I am arguing against is the claim that the only _possible_
| method of transmission of traits is through DNA, which is what
| parent comment said, and has been out of date for quite some
| time.
| humansareok1 wrote:
| Oh yeah so you want to explain how Epigenetics can transfer
| the memory of my Grandfathers 17th Birthday Party to my
| brain?
| jvanderbot wrote:
| ELI5 attempt:
|
| Your genes are a recipe book, not a blueprint. What recipe
| is chosen is based somewhat on environmental effects. When
| you reproduce, you pass on the book + the earmarks on the
| pages.
|
| In your comment, the word "Explicitly" is the controversial
| part. Of course a memory cannot be _explicitly_ (like .mp4?
| lol) encoded in genetics. But effects pass on, or so says
| the field. It's the same as how the word "Memories" in the
| title is doing a lot of hand-wavey hype generation. Can I
| share a password or birthday party during intercourse? Of
| course not.
| humansareok1 wrote:
| >Of course a memory cannot be _explicitly_ (like .mp4?
| lol) encoded in genetics.
|
| Indeed so the answer to the question: Can you inherit
| memories from your ancestors? Is No. Full stop.
|
| You want to talk about how the vibes during your
| grandparents lives affected some obscure part of your
| parents health then ok. But these things are completely
| different.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >Can you inherit memories from your ancestors? Is No.
| Full stop.
|
| With our current knowledge, we cannot either prove or
| disprove this.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Yeah - so, if you want to be right about your takedown of
| the title using narrow interpretations of "memories", you
| probably can be.
|
| But if you want a nuanced discussion of the article, we
| should soften the gaze a little. That's all I'm saying.
| francisofascii wrote:
| Maybe your grandfather had chocolate cake at his party but
| it turned out bad and people got sick. Now today you has an
| unexplained aversion to chocolate cake.
| Angostura wrote:
| So, can you give any evidence or even point at a suggestion
| that inheritable epigenetics can encode inheritable memories?
| moralestapia wrote:
| Not GP, but keep in mind that absence of evidence is not
| evidence of absence.
|
| We would still be cavemen with that attitude.
| biophysboy wrote:
| Its not a brain memory. The argument is that epigenetic
| modifications can be inherited and thus the ancestor's
| environment is "remembered". As for how long it lasts and
| how much the memory is attenuated, well, that's another
| matter.
| passion__desire wrote:
| "Nobody would suppose that the fact that human beings
| everywhere always throw their spears pointy-end first shows
| that there must be a gene for a pointy-end-first instinct." -
| Daniel Dennett.
|
| Counterpoint : "But, as Weiss discovered in a 2008 study, moths
| and butterflies can retain memories from their time as
| caterpillars, suggesting that the creatures' nervous system
| remains during the transformation into a butterfly."
| HPsquared wrote:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3923835/
|
| "Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural
| structure in subsequent generations" (2014)
| frutiger wrote:
| > "Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural
| structure in subsequent generations"
|
| "[...in mice]"
| HPsquared wrote:
| Yes, but the underlying mechanisms behind brains, neurons,
| cells, DNA etc. aren't going to be so different.
| frutiger wrote:
| That's really not always true. And it's disingenuous to so
| unequivocally write the title of a paper about mice when
| the headline article is about humans.
| HPsquared wrote:
| The article talks about the mouse research, I'm giving a
| link so people can read something other than a Guardian
| article and judge for themselves. Fair enough mice are
| different to humans but they're not exactly lobsters.
| (Edit: although if a similar mechanism was found in
| lobsters I would take that as evidence the phenomenon
| being widespread. It's not ethically feasible to conduct
| this experiment on human subjects)
| francisofascii wrote:
| Since human brains and DNA are more complex it is reasonable
| to suspect the generational transference to be greater than
| in mice.
| prokopton wrote:
| Fire up the Animus.
| hliyan wrote:
| Interesting! So basically: smell followed by electric shock (or
| some other painful stimuli) -> demethylation of (already present,
| but dormant?) gene that connects relevant olfactory receptor to
| the amygdala?
| taraparo wrote:
| When memory is made by modifying DNA according to
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00930-y and we inherit
| DNA, then we probably also somehow inherit some form of memories.
| jappgar wrote:
| "Thus, when you and I, asleep or dozing off to sleep, fall
| through space and awake to sickening consciousness just before we
| strike, we are merely remembering what happened to our arboreal
| ancestors, and which has been stamped by cerebral changes into
| the heredity of the race."
|
| https://www.gutenberg.org/files/310/310-h/310-h.htm
| zarmin wrote:
| See also: Rupert Sheldrake Morphic Resonance
|
| https://youtu.be/jq1Z--HQp5k?t=9
| fire_lake wrote:
| Funnily this is an idea that both the far right and the far left
| tend to like.
|
| The far right to suggest that there is a sort of cultural memory
| that immigrants can never integrate with.
|
| The far left to suggest a kind of cultural trauma that requires
| affirmative action.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I'm not sure where you got the take that the left thinks of it
| as trauma; it's consequent events (e.g. your ancestors could
| not get an education, job, and/or buy a house because of racism
| -> you did not benefit from generational wealth even though
| there is now less racism).
|
| I'm also not sure where you get the far right idea from; I
| don't think they believe in "a sort of cultural memory", it's
| just culture, nothing woo about it.
|
| TL;DR it feels like you're misrepresenting political sides to
| try and make this article about politics.
| Unbefleckt wrote:
| I only knew this existed because of the "left" take with
| regards to people descended from slaves (black only of
| course)
| qarl wrote:
| As someone on the left - there's nothing "woo woo" about
| systemic racism.
|
| The single greatest indicator of a person's financial
| success is that of their parents. And that simply repeats
| generation after generation.
|
| There's nothing magical about it.
| nsriv wrote:
| Exactly this. My response is usually just asking if they
| believe in compounding interest. It's the same concept,
| but with those farther up the curve justifying
| themselves.
| randomdata wrote:
| Hence the "woo woo". The promise of delivery of value in
| the future, of which compound interest is a part of, is
| an invented construct that hinges entirely on people
| believing it to be the way things are. If people stopped
| believing, it would all cease to exist. There is no
| fundamental property of the universe that makes it so. It
| is merely religion.
| qarl wrote:
| The fact that successfulness of parents predicts
| successfulness of children is "woo woo"?
|
| I hate racism. It makes people dumb.
| randomdata wrote:
| The fact _ors_ that successfulness of parents predicts
| successfulness of children is "woo woo".
|
| It is not some fundamental property of the universe. It
| is that way only because people believe it to be the way
| things are. We could stop believing. It is just religion.
| But it seems nobody wants to, "the left" included.
|
| Why is that? Because they are a benefactor from it?
| Because, as you suggest, their racist ways have "made
| them dumb"? The youth population - those able to offer
| the most future value and thus responsible for
| maintaining the status quo - by and large "lean left". It
| is not a "those other guys are to blame" situation.
| qarl wrote:
| > It is not some fundamental property of the universe.
|
| LOL. You don't believe in social patterns?
|
| Ok, well, you might be the only one. I hope you don't
| invest in stocks or try to start your own company. Or
| have friends.
| randomdata wrote:
| I don't have beliefs, but I do acknowledge your point
| that actions speak louder than words. It is easy to say
| you are racist, but hard to do something about it, and
| social pattern data indicates that people are lazy and
| racist and therefore won't do anything[1] about it.
|
| [1] Posting silly comments on the internet for the sake
| of entertainment is not doing something as it pertains to
| this.
| qarl wrote:
| Yeah... you take care now.
| randomdata wrote:
| Is there some concern that Hacker News is going to fall
| out of care? Or what do you mean by this?
| exe34 wrote:
| could you give an example?
| qtplatypus wrote:
| The left don't think that trauma can be inherited. They think
| that wealth and social standing can. If your parents have money
| they can use their wealth to make it easier for you to have
| money
|
| If your parents are poor (perhaps due to racism) then you will
| live in a poor area with worse schools, possibly contaminated
| with pollution, subject to higher insurance and basic costs.
|
| This doesn't require magic ancestral memories it just requires
| ecomonics.
| shagie wrote:
| > The left don't think that trauma can be inherited.
|
| The epigenetic reaction to trauma is something that may be
| able to be inherited.
|
| Epigenetic transmission of Holocaust trauma: can nightmares
| be inherited? - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24029109/
|
| Study finds epigenetic changes in children of Holocaust
| survivors - https://www.research.va.gov/currents/1016-3.cfm
|
| How Parents' Trauma Leaves Biological Traces in Children -
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-parents-
| rsquo...
|
| Mechanisms of Epigenetic Inheritance in Post-Traumatic Stress
| Disorder -
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10817356/
|
| (Not trying to pose this as a left/right thing - but rather
| "this is a thing" - and these aren't memories but rather the
| result of epigenetic changes to the expression of hormones
| and neurotransmitters that may be able to be passed from
| mother to child and exhibit differences in how one reacts to
| certain stimuli)
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| I've never heard any of these ideas. The question in the title
| is nonsense and you are skewing and distorting other ideas into
| more nonsense to make something that is already ridiculous
| political.
| hellodang_ wrote:
| Yeah, nobody here knows a single thing they're talking about.
| francisofascii wrote:
| This is analogous to when we inherit an old application without
| the git history and the original developers are long gone. Our
| instincts are a bunch of logic rules encoded into our DNA like
| "If you see a python snake, run away".
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