Can We Inherit Memories From Our Ancestors? Is Genetic Memory Real?

Intriguing recent research now reveals that ancestral memories may be inherited by offspring. Could traumatic memories inherited from our ancestors contribute to the rising incidence of mental illness?

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Recent research in model organisms reveals that traumatic memories may be inherited across several generations, and may predispose offspring to mental illness.

Charles Darwin proposed the theory of natural selection, positing that inherited gene mutations provide offspring with a survival advantage in their environment. Around the same time, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck postulated that organisms could pass down acquired characteristics. He was ridiculed mercilessly. You can’t pass these traits down to your offspring, or can you?

Studies show that exercise-induced benefits can be passed down to offspring, in the form of improved mitochondrial efficiency. Acquiring particularly salient memories from our ancestors could help us know the challenges they faced in their environment and provide us with unique adaptations that ensure our own survival.

For memories to be passed down, they first need to be stored as physical structures in the brain. But this would require information stored in neurons to be transferred and encoded in germline (sperm/egg) cells. One lab found that transferring the RNA of sea slugs trained to respond to a gentle touch that was previously unknown to them could pass on this "trained memory" to other, naïve slugs. This suggests that RNA could be the signal that is used to transfer memories from neurons to germline. But how are these memories encoded and stored?

Epigenetic processes play a role in memory consolidation and help to transmit acquired memories across generations. Specifically, environmental experiences turning our genes “on” or “off” in a context-dependent manner, without changing the underlying genetic code.

Mice conditioned to fear the smell of acetone (by pairing the smell with an electrical shock) can pass on this fear to offspring that had never encountered acetone before. Researchers studying three generations of mice found that their brains had increased electrical activity, size, and number of the specific olfactory sensory neurons that responded to the smell of acetone.

This can occur in humans as well. The Dutch Hunger Winter (DHW) Study, for example, looked at an extended period of famine towards the end of WWII, when Nazi soldiers blocked food supplies to the Netherlands for several months. This horrific act killed more than 20,000 people, and left thousands more severely ill. Pregnant women were particularly vulnerable.

The DHW found that these women's children had a higher incidence of metabolic diseases such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes, suggesting their bodies were programmed to alter their metabolism and hold on to every last calorie in case they too had to face a famine similar to that of their ancestors. The grandchildren showed similar predispositions for metabolic disease suggesting a mechanism of transgenerational inheritance.

The Holocaust Survivors Study assessed the health and wellness of the children of dozens of Holocaust survivors and found they had a distinctive epigenetic profile (methylation pattern) on genes linked to cortisol metabolism which was similar to their parents. Could the trauma and stress of the Holocaust survivors have been epigenetically imprinted on their children so that they too had the capacity for a heightened stress response?

Answers to these questions can deepen our understanding of mental health and lead to paths of increased well-being through better treatments.

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#ststw #memory #epigenetics #engrams #germline #brain #neuroscience #rna #ptsd #trauma #depression #anxiety #famine #darwin #biology #DNA #mentalhealth

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[rumpolstilscin]

I had a vivid dream as a 12 year old. At 20 something, I found myself standing where I was in my dream. A view that, I found out, was probably seen by my grandfather just before he was shipped to France to take part in WWI

[howardcurtis]

On a city tour of Ketchikan Alaska, our guide explained that salmon return to the spot where their mothers spawned them and spawn the next generation within two feet of the spot where they themselves were spawned. Then she mentioned that after the 1989 Exxon-Valdez Oil Spill, many of the streams where salmon had been spawned were so polluted that the salmon could not return to the spot where they had been spawned and had to go to other streams that had not been polluted. This stimulated my curiosity, and so I asked her when the streams were finally all cleaned up, did the next generation of salmon return to the spot within two feet of where their mothers had spawned them, or did they return to the ancestral spots where their grandmothers had spawned their mothers? She had to check and get back to me: the salmon returned to the ancestral spawning spot, not to where they themselves had been spawned right after the oil spill.

[kelphiuspolluxeldanimus]

My instincts KNEW Assassins Creed wasn't lying about genetic memory.

[BrentNally]

This is fascinating information that I’ve been thinking about for many years. Come to think of it, maybe I inherited these thoughts from my ancestors...

[maud]

That's basicly what instincts are... inherit memories..passed on to the offsping. Great video

[dm]

This could explain how a head trauma patient in a coma wakes up speaking a language they don't know, from a place they've never been. I have thought about it for years.

[halwag]

Swiss psychologist Jung talked about collective, racial memories.

[phrsmith]

Tracing your family tree can be very eye-opening to Inherit Memories From Our Ancestors. The one that often crops up is finding somewhere you feel really at home at to then find in researching your family tree some 300 years ago your ancestors come from there.

[theobserver]

I built my first Go cart and my first tree fort by the age of five years old. No one taught me how to build things. I've always wondered why I seemed to be born with that skill.

[thatlookscool]

I've believed this since I was a young child. It's probably been known since the beginning of man. You can watch a child go about tasks theyve never been around or have no personal experience in like they're pros. "Some people are just naturals". I believe a big percentage of deja vu ks suppressed/inherited memories that our mind processes as one of our own memories filling in differences with current "information". It feels so real to us because it did happen and is our memory but we weren't actually the one to make the initial memory, and that's where the confused feeling comes from. Also a firm believer that inherited memories work hand and hand with intuition and other suppressed abilities but can be accessed easily if exercised. "Trust your gut" and dont think twice. Your first instinct is actually hundreds of years worth of experience.

[leslieboles]

I have often wondered about this subject. For instance, why do some dogs respond agressively toward persons in uniforms when they have never had a negative experience with a person in uniform?

[gumbo]

While I find the idea passing down of memories fascinating and even probable, I’m not sold on this being the main reason for increase in mental illness mainly because living with a lot of trauma has been the norm for most people though out history. People don’t realize how poor/dangerous/difficult most of the world was 100/200 yrs ago. Also, farming by hand was incredibly hard work but people from agriculture societies had less mental illness and schizophrenia was almost non existent. So I believe what happens in this lifetime has far greater influence and what happened to our ancestors or in our past lives influence who we are and our fear/ anxiety/abilities, it is definitely more subtle for most people.

[christinebeames]

Animals 8nherit knowledge of nesting what to eat, and birds instinctively know where to fly home despite never having undergone the journey, so we should not be too suprised

[Jay-egmv]

Could reincarnation be actually a person inheriting the memory of his ancestors?

[neilchristensen]

Wow! That was a really interesting video. I had heard about epigenetics carrying information about ancestral traits, but had never thought about memories. Fascinating!

[allenhonaker]

This could also the basis for what we call intuition

[DoloresJNurss]

This might explain the Native American predisposition to obesity and diabetes, since so many were forced to starve on reservations before their first crops could be harvested, denied the tools for hunting or the space to gather.

[mohammadosman]

That would explain some people claiming reincarnation but actually they are experiencing the inherited memories.

[hermitaku]

I once had a dream when I was 19 where I was in a farm but I remember talking to a beautiful woman in a shack outside the barn she had brown hair and dark brown eyes it was during the 17th century it felt vivid and real but I didn’t feel like me if that makes sense.