On September 12, 2011,
Tom Avril of the Philadelphia Inquirer
writes about a new epigenetics study done at the University of Pennsylvania
that speaks of the maternal stress of mice in previous generations effecting
the fetus of future generations. This phenomenon is thought to play a role in
both autism and schizophrenia in humans.
The author cites a
Danish study that shows an increase incidence of schizophrenia when the mother
experienced the death of a close relative during the first trimester of
pregnancy. Because this is hard to study in humans Tracy Bale, Associate
Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania studied the
grandchildren of mice subjected to stressful but non-painful stress (exposure
to fox urine).
In order to rule out
deficiencies in child rearing only the offspring of male children of the
stressed females were selected for the study. The thinking was that if male
offspring can pass it to sons then we know that there will be a marker in the
sperm. Indeed the grandsons with the stressed grandmothers were more sensitive
to stress and the genes involved in their brain development followed the off on
pattern of their grandmothers.
When
I read this fireworks went off inside me. I began doing a personal inventory
for stresses that I had undergone during Andrew’s first trimester and to John’s
mother’s level of stress during her pregnancy with him. I immediately
remembered that John had been admitted to the hospital when he was less than
one month old with a diagnosis of failure to thrive.
His grandmother (mother’s mother) died in a
car accident when she was returning home from a visit to see John right after
his birth.
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