WIKIMEDIAMice trained to fear the smell of a cherry-and-almond-scented chemical called acetophenone passed their anxieties onto their pups, according to a study published this week (December 1) in Nature Neuroscience. Compared to control mice, mice born to acetophenone-fearing fathers shuddered more in response to the scent the very first time they smelled it, and the same was true for a third generation of mice. The researchers provide evidence to suggest that the effect may be mediated by epigenetic changes, but the field is divided.
“The claims they make are so extreme they kind of violate the principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,” Columbia University molecular biologist Timothy Bestor told Nature.
Others are more convinced. Neurobiologist David Sweatt of the University of Alabama at Birmingham told Nature that the manuscript is “the most rigorous and convincing set of studies published to date demonstrating acquired transgenerational epigenetic effects in a laboratory model.”
For example, the researchers, Kerry Ressler and Brian Dias of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, noted differences in the numbers of neurons that produce an acetophenone-detecting receptor protein in mice trained to fear the scent, as well as their descendants, as compared to control mice. And the brain structures that receive projections from these neurons and help process ...
