Children Can Inherit Mom's Abuse-Altered Brain

Texas Mist

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Neurological changes in child abuse victims may be passed on to offspring, research shows.


Physical and chemical changes in the body caused by abuse early in life can be passed down from mother to child, a recent study shows.

The research by behavioral scientists at Emory University in Atlanta was based on studies that show how early life stress (ELS), such as physical and emotional abuse and neglect, leads to observable changes in the brain's hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis.

This system, which is responsible for controlling the "fight or flight" response in humans, can be physically altered by abuse.


more here

http://news.discovery.com/human/abuse-brain-mother-child.html
 
Wow that's really interesting!! This could explain a lot.
 
Either I don't understand this or it is . . . rubbish. I'm completely willing to believe either one LOL!!

Females are born with ovaries full of eggs, the only eggs we'll ever have. This epigenetics thing is saying that THOSE eggs can be altered by stressful events that occur many years before the eggs become our children.

I can understand that actual structures in the brain can be altered by severe stimuli. It does NOT follow, in my mind anyway, that some how the abuses and stresses cause "epigenetic" changes in organs not related to the response to stress (your ovaries).

Interesting idea, but without a lot more info, it sounds like too big of a jump to me . . .
 
I believe what it is saying is that the DNA functionality can be changed because of the stress - but the DNA would remain the same; thus the eggs would essentially remain the same DNA -wise/what you are born with but the life experiences you have could change their 'outcome'.

Somewhat similar to Noetic Science - consciousness changing outcome.

MOO
 
It's pretty interesting. The protein tags that attach to dna can either be enhanced or diminished and once they get in and attach they are part of the child's dna, plus cortisol from a very stressed mother can get into a fetus' bloodstream. Why the writer threw in the one sentence about an abused mother not being as attentive to the infant, I don't know. Surely not every woman who has suffered abuse or the flight or fight response is less attentive. I wonder if women who have panic attacks but were not abused can pass on panic attacks to their babies in the same way.
 

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