Never Forget

Today was a day of remembrance. Everyone on Facebook posted about the World Trade Center tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001. Everyone that I spoke to seemed to still remember with clarity, even though it happened 15 years ago! They could still remember the exact location, place and time that they were in as they witnessed this traumatic life event. Over the years, we continue to see the phrases "Never forget 9.11.2001", "9/11 never forget", "We will never forget September 11, 2001", that remind us of our feelings, emotions, fears, and worries associated with our own experience. At the same time, we ask ourselves (or I ask myself) can these memories live forever?

According to (Yehuda, 2005) they probably can.

In this scientific study, 187 women who were pregnant at the time, and who had personally experienced the events associated with September 11, 2001 were recruited for their study.  One of the reasons for this study was to identify brain activity in the child after birth that could be associated with the trauma or psychological stress that their mothers experienced. They wanted to see in what ways could the children of these women have been affected. Saliva tests and questionnaires associated with post-traumatic stress (PTSD) and depression, were collected from participants. Their saliva would not only indicate if the stress hormone cortisol was present, but also in what amounts. One of the results of the study was that lower levels of cortisol correlated with PTSD, meaning that pregnant women who had developed PTSD had lower amounts of the hormone cortisol in their saliva. Interestingly, their children also showed to have low levels of the hormone cortisol.

The results in this study have been supported by other research studies and scientific literature that has shown that brain stimuli associated with certain fears can be passed on to other generations. (Dias 2014) demonstrated that pregnant mice who were exposed to a fear stimulus in relation to a certain smell, was also found in their future generations. They noticed that future generations who were exposed to this same scent, would demonstrate fear, and would try to avoid the scent.

As research continues to unfold and new discoveries are found about the exact mechanisms involved in this phenomena, we can continue to ask our selves, are these experiences related only to brain activity, or can we actually remember the memories of our ancestors?

Citations:

Yehuda R, et al.,  (2005). Psychological Trauma Associated with The World Trade Center Attacks and Its Effect on Pregnancy Outcome. Pediatric and Prenatal Epidemiology, 19:334-341.

Dias B.G, et al., (2014). Parental Olfactory Experience Influences Behavior and Neural Structure in Subsequent Generations. Nature Neuroscience, 17(1):89-96. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3923835/