
Can We Really Inherit Trauma? - DoreenMichele
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/10/health/mind-epigenetics-genes.html
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KasianFranks
Min 29:25 - Nessa Carey presents an experiment with epigenetic evidence here
[https://youtu.be/9DAcJSAM_BA?t=1765](https://youtu.be/9DAcJSAM_BA?t=1765)

~~~
aaron695
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I'm greatly disturbed that no one seems to have tried to replicate the
experiment of huge significance since 2013. Or worse people use it as a fact,
without it having been replicated.

Science has some real fundamental issues atm.

Wiki points out some issues, but it seems simple to me, it needs to be
replicated.

"Several criticisms were reported, including the study's low statistical power
as evidence of some irregularity such as bias in reporting results.[91] Due to
limits of sample size, there is a probability that an effect will not be
demonstrated to within statistical significance even if it exists. The
criticism suggested that the probability that all the experiments reported
would show positive results if an identical protocol was followed, assuming
the claimed effects exist, is merely 0.4%. The authors also did not indicate
which mice were siblings, and treated all of the mice as statistically
independent.[92] The original researchers pointed out negative results in the
paper's appendix that the criticism omitted in its calculations, and undertook
to track which mice were siblings in the future.["

~~~
erikpukinskis
> Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

People say this, but it seems pointlessly dismissive to me. I'll entertain any
claim, regardless of evidence. Extraordinary claims are often the most worthy
of entertaining.

My brain has no problem keeping track of speculation, provisional theories,
and seeming facts. I don't have any trouble storing both "seems plausible" and
"has evidence" notions side by side and juggling them accordingly.

That aside, my general assumption about evolution is that, since there's no
requirement for adaptations to "make sense" and they have access to all of
reality, including everything science has yet to deconstruct, that animals
almost certainly rely on adaptations far beyond scientific understanding. So a
claim to that effect isn't that extraordinary anyway.

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lukeschlather
I'm not an expert, but it seems like this article might be blowing up a
specific controversy into a general doubt about epigenetics. The stuff I've
read talks about how during pregnancy, the mother transmits information about
the environment to the fetus which causes epigenetic shifts. And this can
compound generationally. The critical statements in this article appear to be
specifically about epigenetic transmission via sperm, which I hadn't read
about having strong evidence to back it up.

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edoo
Although the study 'supports' epigenetics it seems obvious there are other
possibilities as well. Abuse effects people mentally. Those effects can be
passed on to kids behaviorally.

~~~
peteretep
Wonder if this can be controlled for via adopted kids

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getpost
The article mentions Mosche Szyf at McGill. Michael Meaney[0], also at McGill,
is one of the main investigators in this area. IIRC, mice studies are
convincing, in as much as the exact molecular mechanism for epigenetic
transmission was tested in crossover studies. “Environmental conditions during
early development shape brain development. The Meaney lab idenfitied
phenotypic variations in rodent models that derive from variations in maternal
care. Maternal care stably modifies the epigenetic state and expression of
genes implicated in behavioural and endocrine responses to stress and
learning. These studies were the first to describe the influence of the social
environment on genomic structure and function.”

[0] [https://douglas.research.mcgill.ca/michael-
meaney](https://douglas.research.mcgill.ca/michael-meaney)

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lordnacho
So what studies have been done? You'd think something along the lines of
finding people who had kids before and after a trauma?

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aarpmcgee
"Can We Really Inherit Trauma?"

Of course.

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xte
Mh, trauma effect can be transmitted simply by education by parents, for
instance if a parent have had a trauma with fire they can act with fear of
fire and it's children simply absorb that fear observing. I do not know how
this can became "genetic" but I think also something may pass during pregnancy
in a way we can call "instinct" in absence of better explanations...

~~~
mason55
The “better explanations” are called epigenetics. Environmental factors can
cause genes to be turned off or on and that in turn can be passed to children.
So the environment doesn’t effect your DNA (Lamarckian evolution) but it can
still cause your offspring to act differently.

~~~
darkpuma
> _Environmental factors can cause genes to be turned off or on_

The principle here is straight forward, but it's not clear to me that anybody
has actually demonstrated a clear 'signal' in the process.

In other words there is evidence that stress caused by fire trauma can change
the way genes are expressed in an individual, and I believe there is evidence
that stress from trauma can impact gene expression at the process of genetic
recombination. However I've not seen any evidence that, for instance, stress
caused by fire will induce any sort of specifically fire related gene
expression in offspring. Would an orphan who never knew their parents have an
elevated fear of fire if both their parents had survived a severely traumatic
experience with fire? To my knowledge, that's still purely speculative.

The closest I've seen is the suggestion that offspring of famine survivors may
have an epigentic change that makes them gain weight:

> _The field of epigenetics gained momentum about a decade ago, when
> scientists reported that children who were exposed in the womb to the Dutch
> Hunger Winter, a period of famine toward the end of World War II, carried a
> particular chemical mark, or epigenetic signature, on one of their genes.
> The researchers later linked that finding to differences in the children’s
> health later in life, including higher-than-average body mass._

But that leaves open many questions. What other epigentic changes did these
people have that seem unrelated to food/weight? And how many people who
suffered from trauma unrelated to food availability have changes that effect
weight gain?

~~~
iguy
The Dutch children are an odd example here, because they themselves
experienced hunger in the womb. That their bodies remember this isn't
surprising at all. The markers through which this is remembered are sometimes
called epigenetic, the word seems to be a little fuzzy... I guess there is a
small step between individual cells having persistent changes, and daughter
cells in the same individual inheriting such changes. (But again unsurprising:
the embryo needs to mark some cells as future-leg-material when it's only a
few hundred cells, and their millions of actual-leg-cell descendants
remember.)

The big and controversial step is to writing such changes into the germ-line,
so that offspring of the individual cary such a memory. And my understanding
is like yours, that there's some evidence for crude things (like massively
stressed / starved mice having offspring who are calibrated a bit differently)
but not really anything solid for the sort of finer changes we like to
speculate about in humans.

It's not impossible, and it need not be un-Darwinian: your genes care more
about how many grandkids you have than how many kids, and if pre-adjusting
your kids to the environment is advantageous, then they certainly have the
motive to do it. And there are corners of biology in which you could hide a
mechanism to do this (just a little bit) where we would not yet have seen it.

But a lot of the tantalising studies seem to underplay ordinary inheritance.
For example, lots of abused children, sadly, have a 1st-degree relative who
abuses children. Some of whatever is wrong with the abuser may also be wrong
with the victim (through no fault of anyone's!) and this may show up on all
sorts of measures. Removing such things from your data is going to be super-
hard, and if you succeed, you are more likely to get a boring paper.

~~~
darkpuma
> _" The Dutch children are an odd example here, because they themselves
> experienced hunger in the womb. That their bodies remember this isn't
> surprising at all."_

Good point, there's an ocean of difference between experiencing hunger in the
womb, and being well nourished in a womb belonging to a woman who was once
malnourished.

I don't have that study available to me at the moment to check, but I wonder
what they say about children born from those same mothers years after the
famine was over. Surely they looked at that too, since if the same signal was
present that would certainly enhance their findings. If the study doesn't
mention those later children at all, that would suggest to me they're guilty
of p-hacking.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I think it is kind of a stretch to call it _epigenetics_ when the mother was
traumatized _while pregnant with the child in question._ I think we need a
different concept for that.

But I can well imagine that, in most cases, trauma leaves a body permanently
altered in some manner and that this can potentially impact later children.

With no real scientific basis to back it up, I will suggest that if trauma is
passed on to the children biologically, the degree and manner of the
inheritance may vary depending upon whether the traumatized parent was the
father or the mother. Logically, the fact that the biological mother (in "old
fashioned" pregnancies) both contributes DNA and also serves as the incubator
for the fist nine months of life, whereas the father only contributes DNA,
should make a difference in how heritable such a thing is.

~~~
darkpuma
That makes sense, if there is any measurable effect on children who's _fathers
but not mothers_ have suffered trauma such as starvation, that would be a
compelling result.

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arcaster
I had a mentally ill roommate - I can definitely confirm this phenomenon is
possible. Especially when a close housemate isn’t willing to acknowledge their
condition and allows it to progress in severity.

~~~
lainga
Is/are the child(ren) still with said ex-roommate?

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InGodsName
My friend's dad never took responsibilites seriously, so when she was
conceived, her mom was very worried/stressed as her dad was contemplating to
fly to a different country with some other women forever.

When she was 10, weird depression developed and it still affects her to this
date.

She isn't poor, he mom has a good job.

But is it possible the perception of environment from her mother, transfered
to womb and gave her this depression?

Maybe she had depression since birth but only managed to communicate and
understand it when she turned 10?

~~~
AltruisticGap
> My friends dad's never took responsibilites seriously

What kind of dad was this man then? What kind of connection did he build with
his daughter?

It's so obvious from what you wrote, yet it's interesting you seemingly didn't
draw the connection. edit: it may be also that your friend herself did not
draw this connection or is unconsciously avoiding it.

So, so much happens behind closed doors, in every home. So much unwritten
history. So much that you'll never know about someone.

We all want to love our parents and feel it is the right thing to do. Yet to
heal trauma, to heal depression... you have to acknowledge the anger that has
built up. Legitimate anger of being ignored, insulted, ridiculed, abandoned,
shamed, and so on. Paradoxically.. it is through gradually allowing oneself to
feel this anger, that the heart opens.. and we are able to love again both
self and others.

~~~
InGodsName
She told me she doesn't love her dad and she thinks he's immature.

She visits her dad since she went to the country where her dad lives for
studies.

She asked her dad for money for her studies but he refused, saying that he
doesn't have any.

He also sometimes joins her in shopping and buys stuff for himself and never
pays for it.

All while her mom supported her. But she believes it's because of her, her mom
has never progressed in like her dad. (Read: finding a different life partner)

The biggest problem is that she feels as if she's burden for her mom. She
tried sucide at 16.

Now she's 18 and doesn't feel sucidal anymore but negative throughts have
never left her.

I convinced her to go to a doctor who prescribed her Mirtazapine 15mg. It
worked for a few days then stopped working.

Now, she's avoiding doctor.

He depression is very severe. Racing thoughts overload her brain to point
where she's not able to think clearly anymore.

Feels tired all time.

All her friends have left her without saying anything.

Only i am left now. I don't like seeing her like this.

I've read a lot about depression so, that i don't end up making it worse and
not hurt her in anyway.

She says, stop trying for me, I'll never be cured.

But I've a strong belief to see her cured one day.

I wonder what can i do from here.

It's a decade of depression.

~~~
AltruisticGap
If she can afford it talk therapy is what she would really benefit from.
Unfortunately talk therapy is expensive.

You can NOT change her. She will reach out eventually, or she won't. Believing
"I'll never be cured" is itself a defense mechanism. That can mean she's just
too young to be able to start healing. Particularly if she's still stuck in
this environment, and living with those dependencies. Only when she's able to
fly out of the nest, and distance herself sufficiently from both her parents,
she can begin opening up.

The next best thing to help her cope till someday she find the strength to
reach out, is a yoga class. That is not so expensive, even just once a week
will do wonders and more effective and soothing than taking antidepressants. I
talk from experience from a time when I had insane levels of anxiety. Just
once a week made a significant difference.

Bless you both not much else I can say. I wanted to type more but it's too
complex of a topic.

