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A study in an extended family of monkeys provides important insights into how the risk of developing anxiety and depression is passed from parents to children.The study shows how an over-active brain circuit involving three brain areas inherited from generation to generation may set the stage for developing anxiety and depressive disorders.
[...] "Over-activity of these three brain regions are inherited brain alterations that are directly linked to the later life risk to develop anxiety and depression,'' says senior author Dr. Ned Kalin, chair of psychiatry at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. "This is a big step in understanding the neural underpinnings of inherited anxiety and begins to give us more selective targets for treatment."
[...] Interestingly, the brain circuit that was genetically correlated with individual differences in early-life anxiety involved three survival-related brain regions. These regions were located in the brain stem, the most primitive part of the brain; the amygdala, the limbic brain fear center; and the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for higher-level reasoning and is fully developed only in humans and their primate cousins.
More evidence for epigenetics. If trauma can be encoded on the genetic level and passed down to offspring, can shared trauma affect a population's DNA and in turn express itself in its group behaviors/culture?
Original Submission
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2015, @06:21AM
This could go either way. The article is light on details, but parent to offspring could be strictly genetic. However, there was work done switching offspring with anxious or calm parents and the offspring had significant adaptations whether they came from either genetic stock. Epigenetics is the idea that environmental factors affect the genetic expression so some genes are turned on or off. It would be very interesting if the epigenetics of the parent affected the genetics of its own sperm/eggs. If these traits are passed on directly, no matter what environmentals, then meh just more cataloguing the cool library of the genome :)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday July 09 2015, @07:47AM
Agreed, unless there were some separation of of these offspring from their parents, or even re-location of the family as a unit to a less anxious environment, there seems to be little to distinguish learned anxiety from inherited.
That there may be other parent + offspring sets which exhibit less anxiety, may simply be because the parents status in the troop.
If your childhood is littered with visions of your parents getting bullied and intimidated, vs seeing them groomed by monkeys of lower standard and protected by the alphas, can make a significantly different impression on children.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Thursday July 09 2015, @10:59AM
There's usually a genetic aspect, but with regards to anxiety, there's no need for it. If you tell a kid often enough how scary everything is everywhere, eventually the kid is going to have problems with anxiety. That's just how the brain works, the things you focus on are the things you internalize.
It's not always obvious, but it is dangerous. Telling a kid that he did well on the test because he's smart, rarely ends well. Something you are isn't something that you have much control over, but you do have control over how hard you work and how effectively you do it. So, complimenting a child's work ethic has at least some hope of encouraging progress.
(Score: 1) by jcm on Thursday July 09 2015, @05:56PM
I disagree about "complimenting a child's work ethic", this is some subtle brain manipulation.
You should encourage curiosity and avoid focusing on results.
What creates anxiety is the obsession of external achievements, so the child starts to believe that "it's never enough".
In fact, it's more subtle than that: when your mind is "exteriorized" (this means that your thoughts are orientated towards the outside, like "how should I act ?", "I must succeed", "do people love me ?"), anxiety increases.
When you are able to "interiorize" your thoughts (this means forget about the outside results, like "I'm doing something for the pleasure of doing it" or "I don't mind what other people think of me" or "I'm trying my best but I won't predict if I'll succeed or fail"), anxiety disappears.
This is very easy to experiment, and is the basis of many therapies.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday July 09 2015, @06:47PM
I'd say you nead a healthy balance of both. If you have too much "I must succedd" etc., you get anxious. But if you get too much "I don't mind what other people think of me" you won't succeed in life.
A therapy for anxiety will of course teach you the latter, because that's what is missing. It's just like you'd teach an anorexic to eat more; however you wouldn't teach that to an obese.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by jcm on Thursday July 09 2015, @09:05PM
>"I don't mind what other people think of me" you won't succeed in life.
Uh ? What is your definition of "success" ?
Why is it so important to succeed ?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday July 09 2015, @09:30PM
For example, not being the asshole that thinks only of himself and that is avoided by everyone for that reason.
Because you'll likely not be happy for long if you don't.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by jcm on Friday July 10 2015, @08:14PM
>For example, not being the asshole that thinks only of himself and that is avoided by everyone for that reason.
You are too much focused on what others think about you.
I can assure you that it doesn't really matter.
Also, I believe that your morals are: "having friends"=good, "not having friends"=bad.
Did you even realize how lonely you are ?
"Thinking about himself" ?
Why do you believe you seek success, if it's not for yourself ?
To get some nice self-image, you can pretend that you do that for others, but the truth is that you do it for yourself.
>Because you'll likely not be happy for long if you don't.
If you believe happiness results from success, you are deeply wrong, because failures will hurt you a lot.
Happiness is just a state, there is no action to trigger it.
Don't mix "happiness" and "pleasure".
Sure, succeeding gives a lot of pleasure, but happiness ??? I doubt so.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by NoMaster on Thursday July 09 2015, @06:46AM
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats."
Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2015, @07:04AM
Did they even measure anxiety?
So they exposed monkeys to a person who acted creepy by standing silently in the corner of the room for 30 minutes. Then took averages of freezing, cooing, and cortisol. Here's a list of regions correlated with AT (from table S1):
This is essentially the entire brain. Then they pick out three "that are directly linked to the later life risk to develop anxiety and depression".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2015, @07:29AM
Further, as mentioned earlier regarding the "biological age" computation[1], this one consists of adding up various things:
Then at the bottom of page 7 of the supplement we see that as they add them up the AT composite approaches normality, as we would expect for measuring random noise.
[1] https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=8315&cid=206380#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2015, @07:27AM
there's enough reading material on the SSRISTORIES website to reabsorb your testicles.
seriously, how many of these LEGAL hard core drugs are being used during pregnency? Forget a moment about the regular tramps who booze it up or smoke dope, there's some serious shit going on with anti-depressant medications and you don't have to be a fucking doctor to know this.
wait until you've had your baby and have finished breast feeding, then return to your anti-depressant medication should you really, really need it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2015, @08:25AM
ding ding ding [npr.org]
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday July 09 2015, @04:32PM
Antidepressants Versus Placebos: Meaningful Advantages Are Lacking
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/antidepressants-versus-placebos-meaningful-advantages-are-lacking [psychiatrictimes.com]
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2015, @12:43PM
Does this mean that 9/11 really did change everything?
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday July 09 2015, @04:33PM
Reality based community. HAH!
You're betting on the pantomime horse...