alone in transmitting chronic disturbances of the body’s stress apparatus to their young. In one experiment, healthy male mice were vexed by a series of stressors: frequent cage changes, constant light or white noise, exposure to fox odor, being restrained in a small tube, and so on. They were then mated with non-stressed females who provided their pups with perfectly good mothering. Their young showed impaired stress-response behaviors and blunted stress hormone patterns. In other words, despite the mothers’ best efforts, the fathers had transmitted the disturbing effects through their
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