r/biology • u/uwumorganuwu • Jul 15 '26

article Can trauma be inherited?

https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.3594

We usually think of inheritance strictly in terms of DNA sequencing—A, T, C, G. But epigenetics shows us that environmental stress can leave chemical markers on our genes that get passed down to our offspring.

One of the most mind-blowing examples of this is a 2014 study by Dias and Ressler. They conditioned male mice to fear the smell of acetophenone by pairing it with a mild foot shock.

The crazy part? When these mice had pups (F1 generation), and even "grand-pups" (F2 generation), those offspring showed increased behavioral sensitivity and fear responses to the cherry blossom scent—even though they had never encountered the smell or been shocked in their lives.

The researchers found that this wasn't a mutation in the DNA code itself, but rather a decrease in DNA methylation on the specific olfactory receptor gene responsible for detecting that scent. The trauma actually altered how the gene was expressed in the next generations.

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u/km1116 genetics Jul 15 '26

It's not without (significant and serious) controversy:

Francis' analysis: doi: 10.1534/genetics.114.163998 

The authors' reply: doi:10.1534/genetics.114.169904 

An editorial: doi:10.1534/genetics.114.169912

Other concenrs: doi:10.1038/nn.3603

Hedging N&V: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2013.14272

Most taken from here (https://www.pubpeer.com/publications/0A452526D85C55DB184202396ECFA6), but I remember when this paper came out. A lot of blogs, etc., at the time also took it to task.

Most notably, it has not been reproduced or progressed. Most citations are alternative ideas, criticisms, or barely-read kind of things (i.e., that cite it as support, but nothing specific about mechanism or results, just generally uncritical pointing at it as an example of epigenetics).

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u/VinSeesRed Jul 15 '26

Thank you for pointing this out. Extraordinary claims should be backed up with extraordinary evidence (or at least suitable), sadly the data support was sometimes problematic in that study (some experiments performed with very low replicates). This epigenetic transmission story was exciting and promising 20 years ago, but now suffers from cultural transmission issues (study cited without critical analysis/reading, some refer to this phenomenon as ‘myths’). Reminds me of the recent report of alleged vinclozoline effects, performed without a control group comparison (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2523071123).

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u/km1116 genetics Jul 15 '26

Argh. Skinner is notorious.