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Paternal Stress Is Passed To Offspring (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers have discovered that stress experienced by male mice can be passed on to their offspring. "In earlier work, these scientists exposed male mice to six weeks of alternating stressors like 36 hours of constant light, a 15-minute exposure to fox odor, exposure to a novel object (marbles) overnight, 15 minutes of restraint in a 50 mL conical tube, multiple cage changes, white noise all night long, or saturated bedding.
Then the scientists allowed the mice to breed (abstract). Adult offspring of these chronically stressed dads had reduced hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress axis reactivity; when they themselves were restrained for 15 minutes, they did not make as much corticosterone as mice sired by relaxed dads. This is relevant, and problematic, because blunted stress responses in humans are associated with neuropsychiatric disorders like depression, schizophrenia, and autism."
Then the scientists allowed the mice to breed (abstract). Adult offspring of these chronically stressed dads had reduced hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress axis reactivity; when they themselves were restrained for 15 minutes, they did not make as much corticosterone as mice sired by relaxed dads. This is relevant, and problematic, because blunted stress responses in humans are associated with neuropsychiatric disorders like depression, schizophrenia, and autism."
Here:
http://www.livescience.com/32860-why-do-medical-researchers-use-mice.html
Fifth paragraph.
You're welcome, although you did not deserve it.
Seems like a pretty barbaric test on the subjects. I know, for the greater good and everything etc. etc., but at some point where do we draw the line and say this isn't humane to perform?
When it stops helping people.
Darwin just wasn't aware of epigenetics, but that doesn't make him wrong. Like many other scientific theories, we do additional studies and and refine the theories when we find results that they fail to explain or results that contradict our hypotheses. This isn't something completely new, but we're just scratching at the surfaces of how it works.
Here's one particular study in the area that's particularly interesting. What the researchers found was that people who's grandparents had suffered through a famine had lower mortality rates for certain diseases. What we're learning is that our DNA has some feedback mechanisms to environmental responses and isn't just a simple matter of passing along traits through genes. It's some really fascinating stuff.
We're talking epigenetics here, so environmentally driven gene expression in the father might be passed down to the kid. Beside, a father working out is more likely to have a proper nutrition and saner lifestyle (better sleep pattern, less partying / drinking, less overall stress), and thus give good habit to his kid giving him key to succeed..