Can you inherit memories from your ancestors?

This is such an odd preoccupation of places like the guardian and has a lot of the hallmarks of the discredited recovered memory movement&#x2F;therapy[1][2]. There&#x27;s never any discussion of epigentic changes that effect somatic cells vs gametes, or even of the competing definitions of epigenetic changes.<p>Here&#x27;s a quote from the article:<p>&gt; Scientists working in the emerging field of epigenetics have discovered the mechanism that allows lived experience and acquired knowledge to be passed on within one generation<p>This is obviously such a nonsense interpretation of epigenetic changes that it&#x27;s hard to take anything in the article seriously.<p>Obviously there&#x27;s real science happening around epigenetics and there are interesting findings, reporting like this is a really big leap.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Recovered-memory_therapy" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Recovered-memory_therapy</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;09&#x2F;27&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;recovered-memory-therapy-mental-health.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;09&#x2F;27&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;recovered-memory-...</a>

Funnily this is an idea that both the far right and the far left tend to like.<p>The far right to suggest that there is a sort of cultural memory that immigrants can never integrate with.<p>The far left to suggest a kind of cultural trauma that requires affirmative action.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC3923835&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC3923835&#x2F;</a><p>&quot;Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations&quot; (2014)

&gt; trauma inflicted on your grandfather<p>Can anyone verify that studies have shown that trauma can be inherited from male parents? I had been assuming epigenetic memory came from mothers, via chemical signaling during pregnancy. But epigenetic memory from fathers must be from actual changes to the DNA? Fascinating that a trigger like &#x27;the smell of cherries&#x27; can be stored that precisely. It is very hard to believe, so relying on the scientific method here.

Fire up the Animus.

When memory is made by modifying DNA according to <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;d41586-024-00930-y" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;d41586-024-00930-y</a> and we inherit DNA, then we probably also somehow inherit some form of memories.

My favorite footnote from <i>Entangled Life</i> [1] (a great book mostly about fungal relationships) is about tapeworm memories: scientists can train them to solve mazes, cut off their heads [which re-spawn], and the trained maze memories are still implemented by the new neuronal cluster (&quot;brain&quot;).<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Entangled-Life-Worlds-Change-Futures&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0525510311" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Entangled-Life-Worlds-Change-Futures&#x2F;...</a>

Interesting! So basically: smell followed by electric shock (or some other painful stimuli) -&gt; demethylation of (already present, but dormant?) gene that connects relevant olfactory receptor to the amygdala?

This is analogous to when we inherit an old application without the git history and the original developers are long gone. Our instincts are a bunch of logic rules encoded into our DNA like &quot;If you see a python snake, run away&quot;.

&quot;Thus, when you and I, asleep or dozing off to sleep, fall through space and awake to sickening consciousness just before we strike, we are merely remembering what happened to our arboreal ancestors, and which has been stamped by cerebral changes into the heredity of the race.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gutenberg.org&#x2F;files&#x2F;310&#x2F;310-h&#x2F;310-h.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gutenberg.org&#x2F;files&#x2F;310&#x2F;310-h&#x2F;310-h.htm</a>

No, obviously.

See also: Rupert Sheldrake Morphic Resonance<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;jq1Z--HQp5k?t=9" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;jq1Z--HQp5k?t=9</a>

Can memories be explicitly encoded in genes? If not then no. End of the story.