What is New About the Imprint?

It seems that new research is confirming much of the Primal position. This is especially true of the work of Michael Meaney and Moshe Szyf (McGill University,Canada). (see for example http://publications.mcgill.ca/headway/magazine/the-nurture-of-things/ or http://publications.mcgill.ca/mcgillnews/2011/06/01/are-your-genes-your-destiny-not-if-your-mom-has-anything-to-say-about-it/ or http://epigenome.eu/en/2,68,1181 ) They are critical work on epigenetics, and how imprints through methylation can be passed down from one generation to another.

They don’t call it an imprint but that is what it is……a key repressed memory that endures and persists throughout our lives; it drives behavior and symptoms. It turns out that imprints can be passed down from parents to baby and from grandparents to baby. Methylation depends on the work of the chemical methyl group which is recruited when there is a traumatic event, and helps embed that memory. . It seems that when there is a surge of methylation part of it attaches to one element of the gene known as cytosine. It is now part of the DNA and turns on or off certain hormones and other neuro-chemical processes.. Once that happens methyl is recruited and the genetic unfolding is thereafter altered.

In short, methylation can be an agent of repression. A study at Duke University showed that when female mice were fed a diet rich in methyl it completed altered the fur pigment of the offspring. In other words, it acted like a genetic inheritance when it was not. It was the result of experience and that is the linchpin of our theory… epigenetics.

As a result of this study the two scientists from Canada, (Meaney and Szyf) thought, if that is true why shouldn’t it be true of other experiences such as bad mothering or negligent parenting? Well, it was and epigenetics research exploded. Think of that: traumatic events in very early childhood leave a mark or tag on a gene that affects us just about forever. They found that even grandparents affected the imprints of the grandchildren, which we will get to in a moment. But suffice to say that the experiences of our forbearers can endure and be passed down the genetic chain, the inheritance of acquired characteristics. This is something science thought impossible decades ago.
 What the scientists found is that the right amount of licking and grooming early on left offspring with less chronic stress hormone output as adults. It is what we all know; that early love makes us stronger and less anxious. But it turns out that if the mothers were licked and groomed early on in their lives, that experience could be passed on. The genes could be modified by the methyl group (and also other chemicals) in a beneficent way. Good history in the mother, good childhood for the children. And more loving by the mother the less methylation in the child . And with less chronic stress hormone production there is far less chance of serious diseases later on such as Alzheimer’s.

To make sure that these changes in the rat pups resulted from experience and not hereditary, they let normally stable rat pups be raised by neurotic negligent mothers. And the result was still the same,; unstressed babies. These babies had mothers who had normal amounts of methyl in their systems. Thus rats raised by loving mothers could pass it onto offspring even when the adopted mother was not loving. The genes for stress hormone output had minimal methylation. In other words love was passed down the genetic chain. So normal babies raised by negligent and inattentive mothers still had low methyl levels in their hippocampus. The babies started life one leg up, a good start in life despite a bad childhood. I believe that changes in the genes, methylation and acetylation, must occur very early as the whole neuronal system is evolving. So before we can state what causes depression or anxiety, we need to observe the early epigenetics at work. Again, pups born to unloving mothers were handed over to loving mothers, and those born to bad mothers reared by loving mothers still seemed to be normal and relatively un-methylated.

Here is one more reason this research is important: they found that unloving mothers of rodents causes methylation of the estrogen receptors in female offspring. Then when they had offspring of their own the offspring were deficient in estrogen which made them less attentive and loving to their own babies.  We as yet do not know how many key chemical processes can be affected by lack of early love. And more, we have no idea how many hormones are changed in neurotic mothers (heavily methylated) and how that affects myriad adult behaviors. Is depression inherited? There may be precursors for it which is never manifested if there were plenty of love later in childhood. Is some of the tendency to methylation inherited or epigenetically passed on? And does that form the basis for depression? It seems from the research just cited that that neurotic mothers (methylated), are ineluctably forced to be unloving, thus laying the groundwork for depression in the offspring later on. And what other hormones are depleted by this scenario? Are we born with a tendency to anxiety? Possibly but then the imprint is not methyl so much as acetyl., in this case. With acetylation there are more faults in the repressive system and “holes” in the gating system. Acetylation (recruiting acetyl) pretty much produces the opposite of methylation, a tendency to open rather than close.

Early trauma produced heavy methylation in those children who grew up in orphanages. And that process then affected much more in terms of brain and neuronal development. So when we find a mother who is not loving we need to know that she may being driven by her epigenes; she is a victim of those changes. Her cortisol/stress hormone level militates against maternal instincts. Methylation shuts down a number of “natural” behaviors. In neurosis we cannot be natural and appreciate nature because we are disconnected and alienated from our own nature.. We cannot rely on our feelings to guide us because they have effectively been shut down; we are alienated from them. Literally, the feelings are aliens. We have found that patients on the verge of these feelings in sessions often run a fever. The body treats the feelings as a menace, a danger and something to be avoided; yet it is also what can liberate us.

Can we reverse or undo methylation? The research informs us that with rats who had been damaged, and raised by unloving mothers, when they were infused with trichostatin did not show evident damage. As though the trauma never occurred. This drug removes methyl from the system. It did, in brief, undo history. This is what I think may be happening with our patients. In the reliving there must be a change in methylation so as to reverse history; this is what we shall study in our future research projects. It seems to me the natural way provides far less possibility for collateral damage to the system. Since we already have found that chronically high cortisol levels have been reversed in our therapy, it would perhaps follow that methylation could also be reversed. In a way, the levels of methylation can be a marker for having been loved early on or not having been loved. We could tell more than the statements by the person who claims he was loved in his childhood if he were indeed not loved. How much denial is there?

Neurochemistry may be better relied on because it has no reason to lie and wouldn’t know how to do it even if possible. It can be a marker for post traumatic stress or how much repression exists in ADD. Or how much pain/repression is there in Alzheimer’s disease? We already have some information in this regard because autopsies on depressive/ suicides found them to have been heavily methylated in the hippocampal area. The more abuse as a child in these cases the more methylation produced. When we add this to our future research on telomeres and cortisol we will begin to have precise measures of the pain in us. And we will know when a drug is too dangerous for us, particularly the drugs like marijuana that tend to open us to ourselves; to our feelings and pain. Finally we will have a marker for the efficacy of certain psychotherapies.  Does the therapy undo the past? Does it help relieve repression and therefore depression? Is there great first line pain in anxiety states? What seems to be the case is that love obviates methylation and produces normal souls.