Mother's Youthful Experiences May Impact Future Children's Ability To Learn

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 20:07 in Psychology & Sociology

A study reveals that the severity of learning disorders may depend not only on the child's environment but also on the mother's environment when she was young. The researchers studied the brain function of pre-adolescent mice with a genetically-created defect in memory. When these young mice were enriched by exposure to a stimulating environment – including novel objects, opportunities for social interaction and voluntary exercise – for two weeks, the memory defect was reversed. The work showed that this enhancement was remarkably long-lasting because it was passed on to the offspring even though the offspring had the same genetic mutation and were never exposed to an enriched environment.  read more

Read the whole article on Scientific Blogging

More from Scientific Blogging

Related

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox!