The big idea: can you inherit memories from your ancestors?

The science of epigenetics 🧬 suggests we can pass on trauma – but trust and compassion too.

“Since the sequencing of the human genome in 2003, genetics 🧬 has become one of the key frameworks for how we all think about ourselves. From fretting about our health to debating how schools can accommodate non-neurotypical pupils, we reach for the idea that genes deliver answers to intimate questions about people’s outcomes and identities.

Recent research backs this up, showing that complex traits such as temperament, longevity, resilience to mental ill-health and even ideological leanings are all, to some extent, “hardwired”.

Environment matters too for these qualities, of course. Our education and life experiences interact with genetic factors to create a fantastically complex matrix of influence.

But what if the question of genetic 🧬 inheritance were even more nuanced? What if the old, polarised debate about the competing influences of nature and nurture was due a 21st-century upgrade?”

> https://shorturl.at/tpiqt <

Epigenetic 🧬 modifications are paramount towards all physiological and psychological processes, and if we take a look at how “stress” 🤯 and the subsequent mental health issues that may arise, which have been well studied in both humans & animals.

All the sociological data shows that if a child lives in an extremely stressful environment, such as a horrible upbringing, then as an adult will be at a much higher risk of alcoholism, addiction to drugs, increased risk of suicide, as well as mental health disorders including severe depression and schizophrenia.

Why is it the case that if a child has a horrible start to life and even when they are taken out of that environment into a more loving and healthier environment, that they are still at a higher risk of these mental health disorders.

So, the questions need to be asked, what happened in their childhood to affect or influence them in adulthood. The answer that you will get more times than not is that they were psychologically damaged, which is more than likely to be true.

Epigenetic 🧬 testing and the huge amount of subsequent data gathered over the coming years, will allow us to quickly define when, what and why stressors took effect upon certain regions within the epigenome, which then go on to cause stress, anxiety, depression & schizophrenia.

A fantastic illustration of the “Epigenetic landscape” by Conrad Waddington in 1957 helps to simplify how during pregnancy your embryonic stem cells (the marble) goes through a process of cellular differentiation and development.

Highlighting a variety of pathways that each cell/ marble can take down the hill, and as to whether that cell then goes onto become an eye, cheek, bone, or muscle cell etc.

Epigenetic 🧬 methylation and modifications after birth now do not change what a gene originally codes for, but how they express themselves or if they are expressed at all.