“Jesse explained that he had been a star athlete and a straight-A student, but that his persistent insomnia had initiated a downward spiral of depression and despair. He was twenty years old but looked much older. Jesse was a patient of Mark’s who hadn’t slept through the night in over a year, carrying dark bags underneath his eyes. Now for a human example of inherited familial trauma. The mice appeared to inherit not only the sensitivity to the scent, but also the fear response associated with it.” - page 36-37 They also exhibited the same brain changes. Both the pups and grandpups, when exposed to the blossom odor, became jumpy and avoided it, despite never having experienced it before. The most intriguing aspect of the study is what occurred in the next two generations. Researchers were also able to identify changes in the mice’s sperm. They also had enlarged brain areas devoted to those receptors. After a while, the shocked mice had a greater amount of smell receptors associated with that particular scent, enabling them to detect it at lower concentrations. Each time they were exposed to the smell, they simultaneously received an electric shock. “ Mice in one generation were trained to fear a cherry blossom–like scent called acetophenone. In a study with mice (did you know that humans and mice share 98% similar DNA?!) it has been proven that traumatic responses can be inherited across multiple generations: This is a brand new area of research and understanding, really only emerging over the past fifteen years.
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