Parent's genes to shape child`s behavior how? - Video

Parenting is hard as one not only impacts the behavior of their offspring but make up a life for them. Genes matter, too. And although most of our genes are inherited in pairs, one copy from each parent, exert their genetic influence in different ways.

Scientists at the University of Utah has explained how parental genes shape child's behavior. The study was published in the, 'Cell Reports'. Journal Christopher Gregg, the principal investigator and associate professor in the Neurobiology. Mentioned that A clearer picture of the genetic factors that shape behavior is a crucial step toward developing better diagnoses and treatments for psychiatric disorders.

The team reports that certain groups of cells in the brains of mice rely exclusively on the mother's copy of a gene that is needed to produce essential chemical messengers in the brain called neurotransmitters.

After identifying this unexpected switch in parental control of a single gene, the team went on to demonstrate that it had consequences for behavior & found that each parent's gene affected sons and daughters differently: certain decisions in sons were controlled by their mother's gene, whereas fathers had control over some decision-making in daughters.

Papers first author said "The revelation that maternal and paternal alleles of the same gene along the brain-adrenal axis could have disparate, or possibly even antagonistic, phenotypic consequences on behavior is an intriguing observation,". Hence concluding that this finding is a first step toward understanding how a parent's genes may affect more routine behaviors and related health conditions in people, from mental illnesses and addiction to cancer and Alzheimer's disease.