Non-DNA mediated transmission of behavior across generations

Biological information is typically considered as being transmitted across generations by DNA but evidence indicates the existence of non-genetic inheritance. One important mechanism with significant health implications is maternal (parental) non-genetic effects. The mother (parents) provides not only genetic material for the offspring but also the environment including various factors such as cytokines and hormones that are essential for the normal development of the offspring.

Background: Maternal programming of brain development and adult emotional and cognitive behavior in health and disease

"Maternal programming" is a term that reflects the action of maternal factors during sensitive periods of development that produces persistent effects in the offspring. For example, maternal factors are essential for the proper development of the fetal and neonatal brain and for the establishment of normal, species specific adult emotional and cognitive behavior. Genetic and/or environmental perturbations of the maternal physiology and behavior can lead to developmental abnormalities in the offspring that are manifested in adolescence of adulthood as mental and cognitive disorders.

Additional similar models are used in our laboratory to study the non-genetic transfer of behavior from mother to offspring. These include a model in which the mother is deficient in tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF) that leads to increased learning of spatial details similar to that seen in obsessive compulsive disorder (see figure below) and another model in which the mother lacks the fragile X protein that leads to inappropriate social interaction (lack of stranger anxiety seen in for example in Williams' syndrome) and hyperactivity seen in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Ongoing projects