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Can you inherit memories from your ancestors?
- zarmin 2y agoSee also: Rupert Sheldrake Morphic Resonance https://youtu.be/jq1Z--HQp5k?t=9 https://youtu.be/jq1Z--HQp5k?t=9
- ProllyInfamous 2y agoMy favorite footnote from Entangled Life [1] (a great book mostly about fungal relationships) is about tapeworm memories: scientists can train them to solve mazes, cut off their heads [which re-spawn], and the trained maze memories are still implemented by the new neuronal cluster ("brain"). [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Entangled-Life-Worlds-Change-Futures/dp/0525510311 https://www.amazon.com/Entangled-Life-Worlds-Change-Futures/...
- ch4s3 2y agoThis 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered-memory_therapy [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/opinion/recovered-memory-therapy-mental-health.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/opinion/recovered-memory-...
- moralestapia 2y ago>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 2y agoI 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 2y agoErm…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 2y agoAnd yet ... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2248710/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2248710/ Btw, read the site guidelines. This is a place for discourse, not berating others.
- ch4s3 2y agoFollow 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-during-metamorphosis-20230726/#:~:text=The%20reshuffling%20of%20neurons%20during,don't%20persist%20in%20adults https://www.quantamagazine.org/insect-brains-melt-and-rewire....
- BenFranklin100 2y agoFurther, 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 2y ago
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- giantg2 2y agoEh, 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 2y agoThere’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 2y agoIt 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 2y agoIt'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 2y agoMemory 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 2y ago
- everdrive 2y agoIs 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?
- ch4s3 2y agoIt 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 2y agoI'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 2y agoI'm not sure if that totally fits. There's a kind of signal amplification or de-amplification happening.
- jvanderbot 2y agoYeah I was using dogear as a way of signalling "prefer this page"
- ChuckMcM 2y agoYeah 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 2y agoI 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 2y agoThe article is about genetic inheritance, not about inheritance in general.
- 0xcde4c3db 2y agoDefinitely. 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 2y agoWhy 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. :-)
- mech422 2y agoI 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 2y agoThere'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.
- funcDropShadow 2y agoI've always wondered why so many different culture know some notion of a dragon. Is it possible that these are based on inherited memories, patterns, insticts of dinosaurs? I know this would be a wild leap but one my wonder.
- krapp 2y agoThe trick is that "some notion of a dragon" is incredibly vague, with "dragons" sharing very few commonalities between cultures. A European wyvern and Quetzalcoatl are almost nothing alike, yet people consider them both "dragons." >Is it possible that these are based on inherited memories, patterns, insticts of dinosaurs? It is possible that these are based, at least in part, on the discovery of dinosaur fossils, but humans didn't even evolve until the dinosaurs were long dead. So even if it were possible for "inherited memory" to include visual memories it wouldn't do so for dinosaurs.
- biotinker 2y agoI 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Critchlow
- ch4s3 2y ago> 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 2y ago> 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 2y agoYes, 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/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16483114/
- stubish 2y agoAs best we can tell through experimentation, trauma at least is passed on to subsequent generations. Comparing the science to discredited books that were based on the science and extrapolated without evidence is not a valid comparison. Like conflating UFOs with extraterrestrials, it takes a leap of faith to go from one to the other.
- humansareok1 2y agoCan memories be explicitly encoded in genes? If not then no. End of the story.
- ch4s3 2y agoTo the best of my understanding, no and I'm aware of any proposed mechanism.
- alkonaut 2y agoIsn’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 2y agoThe 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 2y agoThey 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/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24292232/
- ch4s3 2y agoI 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.
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- HPsquared 2y agohttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3923835/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3923835/ "Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations" (2014)
- frutiger 2y ago> "Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations" "[...in mice]"
- HPsquared 2y agoYes, but the underlying mechanisms behind brains, neurons, cells, DNA etc. aren't going to be so different.
- frutiger 2y agoThat’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 2y agoThe 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 2y agoSince human brains and DNA are more complex it is reasonable to suspect the generational transference to be greater than in mice.
- prokopton 2y agoFire up the Animus.
- hliyan 2y agoInteresting! 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 2y agoWhen memory is made by modifying DNA according to https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00930-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00930-y and we inherit DNA, then we probably also somehow inherit some form of memories.
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- jappgar 2y ago"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 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/310/310-h/310-h.htm
- fire_lake 2y agoFunnily 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_ 2y agoI'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 2y agoI only knew this existed because of the "left" take with regards to people descended from slaves (black only of course)
- qarl 2y agoAs 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 2y agoExactly 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 2y ago
- hellodang_ 2y ago[dead]
- francisofascii 2y agoThis 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".
- stubish 2y ago> trauma inflicted on your grandfather Can anyone verify that studies have shown that trauma can be inherited from male parents? I had been assuming epigenetic memory came from mothers, via chemical signaling during pregnancy. But epigenetic memory from fathers must be from actual changes to the DNA? Fascinating that a trigger like 'the smell of cherries' can be stored that precisely. It is very hard to believe, so relying on the scientific method here.
- Staple_Diet 2y agoThe most compelling evidence of any epigenetic changes influencing offspring were the animal studies that showed trauma to the mother can be evident two generations later in premature maturation of memory systems of male offspring (i.e., grandsons). As you state this is via the maternal line at first, I will need to check if the inbetween carrier was female or male. Rick Richardson has done a lot of work on this, here is one paper but I'd suggest looking at his further work; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3637360/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3637360/
- rnd0 2y agoNo, obviously.