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."

Comments

Poor mice

[captaindomon]

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?

Re:Poor mice

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Those mice still are better off than cows and pigs.

Re:Poor mice

[Nyder]

I agree, this is inhumane to do to mice. We should just start making clones of humans so we can do the experiments on them.

Immigration

[gurps_npc]

Modern common sense (which is often wrong), believes that:

1) First generation immigrants work very hard, but rarely become successful themselves. They live a very high stress life, but do manage to send their kids to college...

2) Second generation immigrants succeed far beyond their parents, becoming doctors, lawyers, and other upper class positions. By the time they father children, they usually have made it, and live with less stress than their parents.

3) Whereupon their children have no stress and become wastrels,