Epigenetics: Are Traumas Hereditary?
Strange is the generation that has never experienced a tragedy. When there have been no wars, there have been famines, genocides or serious economic crises. The often devastating physical and psychological consequences that people can experience after a similar experience are well known. But, can tragedies be inherited? Epigenetics answers this question.
Until recently, the possibility was not considered that traumatic experiences that leave a genetic residue in those who live them could be passed on to subsequent generations. Epigenetic studies conducted on animals prove this.
Despite this, human research presents a clear ethical problem. It is therefore extremely difficult to establish to what extent and how humans can genetically inherit even the tragedies and sufferings of parents and grandparents.
Social psychology, the first way of access
It has been possible to carry out some mass experiments in the field of social psychology. And the results are enlightening. These studies, carried out from one generation to the next, show that humans, like animals, can also inherit trauma.
Social psychology cannot determine which genetic mechanism, which mutation or which gene is altered, instead it has found that there are even different inheritance patterns by gender. A discovery that is revolutionizing the world of psychology, sociology and genetic research.
Trauma Epigenetics Experiments
Finland and World War II
A study conducted by the team of Dr. Torsten Santavirta, of the University of Uppsala, found that the daughters of those who were evacuated from Finland as children during World War II have many more problems with hospitalization for psychological disorders.
Research also showed that this did not appear to affect male offspring. We tried to explain this interesting on the basis that mental illness in men, in general, is less frequent. Still, the coincidence is surprising.
Confederate soldiers
Another study conducted with descendants of Confederate soldiers killed in the Andersonville POW camp, Georgia, during the War of the Succession of the United States, reports data very similar to that of Finland.
The children of prison camp survivors lived far less than the children of other non-prisoner war veterans . Furthermore, it was found that many of them died much younger than their older brothers who were born before the war. That is, before the parents experienced the trauma and could pass it on.
The grandsons of the holocaust
One of the first published epigenetic studies was conducted on survivors of concentration camps during the Nazi regime. The team of researchers from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York studied the genetic makeup of a group of Jewish concentration camp victims and compared it to that of their children.
The study focused on a specific region of a gene associated with the regulation of stress hormones and showed that both survivors and their children had that gene altered due to inherited trauma. To guarantee the results, parallel genetic analyzes were carried out to exclude the possibility that the children, the second generation, could have modified the gene due to their own traumatic experience.
The inexplicable gender distinction in epigenetics
In addition to what has been said so far, there is another inexplicable fact at the moment. Just as the legacy of trauma in the case of children evacuated from Finland seems to have been transmitted only to their daughters, in the case of prisoners of war the data are reversed. In this case it seems that only the sons inherited the trauma.
All this research is bringing to light a knowledge that can be extremely important for the future of the physical and mental health of the human being. It seems that humans can inherit the tragedies experienced by their ancestors. However, studies are currently raising more questions than answers.
