The potential implications are stunning, as anxiety risks were found to be passed down across multiple generations.

Do you suffer from an anxiety disorder? Do you struggle terribly in social situations? If you answered “Yes” to either question and you are female,  your father just might be to blame. 

A new study (in mice) from Tufts University College of Medicine suggests that a woman’s risk of anxiety and dysfunctional social behavior may depend on the experiences of her parents – particularly fathers – when they were young. The study revealed that, in males, stress (caused by chronic social instability) during youth contributes to epigenetic changes in sperm cells. It is these cellular changes that can lead to psychiatric disorders in female offspring across multiple generations.

We have known for decades that emotional illness tends to run in families, suggesting genetic factors passed down over generations. But recent advances in the science of epigenetics – changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to DNA – has boldly challenged science’s understanding of how traits of all types are passed down through generations. 

DNA Is Not Always Destiny

“The long-term effects of stress can be pernicious. We first found that adolescent mice exposed to chronic social instability, where the cage composition of mice is constantly changing, exhibited anxious behavior and poor social interactions through adulthood. These changes were especially prominent in female mice,” said first author Lorena Saavedra-Rodríguez, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in the Larry Feig laboratory at Tufts University School of Medicine.

The researchers then studied the offspring of these previously-stressed mice and observed that again female, but not male, offspring exhibited elevated anxiety and poor social interactions. Notably, even though the stressed males did not express any of these altered behaviors, they passed on these behaviors to their female offspring after being mated to non-stressed females. Moreover, the male offspring passed on these behaviors to yet another generation of female offspring.

“We are presently searching for biochemical changes in the sperm of stressed fathers that could account for this newly appreciated form of inheritance” said senior author Larry A. Feig, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry at Tufts University School of Medicine. “Hopefully, this work will stimulate efforts to determine whether similar phenomena occur in humans.”  

Related Story: How Stress Damages Your DNA

August 19, 2012
The Healthy Mind Network
 

Story Source: The above story contains original content and/or information reprinted and editorially adapted by The Healthy Mind. Material is provided by Tufts University College of Medicine.

Photo Credit: spaceodissey 

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