Negative or positive experiences can alter the DNA of newborns during their first six months of life, according to a new study. Explanations.
The experiment involves mice but opens up incredible prospects for understanding the development of the human species. American researchers have just demonstrated that cuddling or not cuddling a newborn could modify its DNA, and this during the first six months of weaning, the term “cuddle” covering all the physical and psychological care that it is possible to provide. bring to an infant.
Permeable
As the short story explains study published in Science, the infant’s DNA is permeable to variations in its environment. If we already knew that the 25,000 genes that constitute it can activate or deactivate according to external stimuli, we were totally unaware that they could also change order, distribution and number depending on the treatment received.
For two weeks, the American researchers (Tracy A. Bedrosian, Carolina Quayle, Nicole Novaresi and Fred. H. Gage) observed two groups of female mice accompanied by their young. The first group consisted of caring mouse mums, providing care and grooming to their offspring, while the second group consisted of mice mice abandoning their babies.
By focusing on the brain cells of newborns, the researchers found that the DNA of baby mice that received more attention from their mothers was stable, while the DNA of abandoned mice changed. In the latter, certain genes duplicated and appeared several times in succession in the DNA structure, according to a process called “retrotransposition”.
Modification
Concretely, the retrotransposition has, according to the American researchers, given birth to adult mice more stressed and less well adapted to their environment than the mice which did not undergo DNA modification during their first months of life.
Transposed to the human level, this discovery opens up important perspectives for research on all neurological or psychiatric diseases, such as depression or schizophrenia. They could find their origin during the first six months of life. “Without forgetting that the discovery opens the possibility of attacking these pathologies by biochemical treatments aimed directly at the mechanism of retro-transposition of jumping genes”, specifies Science and Life.
For more information: “How epigenetics will change our lives”, a program on the VYV Fréquence Médicale channel.
The guest is Professor Joël de Rosnay. We don’t know where to start his biography. From the Pasteur Institute to MIT… We will summarize by saying that he is a major figure in science in our country; and the author of many best-sellers, the last of which has just been released: “La symphonie du vivant”. Poetic title, but subtitled: “How epigenetics will change your life!”. With epigenetics, medicine enters a new dimension. It proves that our daily behavior (diet, stress, physical exercise, lifestyle…) inhibits or activates some of our genes.
Is the world breaking free from the genetic shackles and undermining the Darwinian world? Our evolution is also done in small steps, on the scale of a lifetime; and above all, these modifications are transmitted. This also means that the genetic “fatality” is no longer valid and that we are all the conductors of our life, our changes and our balance. Joël de Rosnay goes even further by imagining a world of tomorrow that goes from a representative democracy to a participatory democracy… A program that is both practical, because the examples are numerous, and which will give food for thought.
Find all the broadcasts of the VYV Fréquence Médicale channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtNyuN_HFlNYO0-gqXwhLTg/playlists
.