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Cultural trauma and epigenetic inheritance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2018

Amy Lehrner  and
Rachel Yehuda
Amy Lehrner*
Affiliation:
James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Rachel Yehuda
Affiliation:
James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Amy Lehrner, James J. Peters VA Medical Center, 130 W. Kingsbridge Road (526/OOMH), Bronx, NY 10468; E-mail: amy.lehrner@va.gov.
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Abstract

The question of whether and how the effects of cultural trauma can be transmitted intergenerationally from parents to offspring, or even to later generations, has evoked interest and controversy in academic and popular forums. Recent methodological advances have spurred investigations of potential epigenetic mechanisms for this inheritance, representing an exciting area of emergent research. Epigenetics has been described as the means through which environmental influences “get under the skin,” directing transcriptional activity and influencing the expression or suppression of genes. Over the past decade, this complex environment–biology interface has shown increasing promise as a potential pathway for the intergenerational transmission of the effects of trauma. This article reviews challenges facing research on cultural trauma, biological findings in trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder, and putative epigenetic mechanisms for transmission of trauma effects, including through social, intrauterine, and gametic pathways. Implications for transmission of cultural trauma effects are discussed, focused on the relevance of cultural narratives and the possibilities of resilience and adaptivity.

Type
Special Issue Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 30 , Special Issue 5: Cultural Development and Psychopathology , December 2018 , pp. 1763 - 1777
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

The authors would like to thank Alex Ropes, Migle Staniskyte, and Emmanuel Ruhamya for assistance with manuscript preparation.

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