ArticleEnvironmental epigenetics2018
Transgenerational inheritance of behavioral and metabolic effects of paternal exposure to traumatic stress in early postnatal life: evidence in the 4th generation.
Article in Environmental epigenetics, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 109 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Dietary restriction induces persistent multigenerational phenotypic effects in Phytoseiulus persimilis.Pest management science · 2026Article
- Epigenetic-Genetic Coupling and Understanding the Molecular and Cellular Basis of Lamarckian Inheritance.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Genetic heritage of war: exploring transgenerational inheritance of PTSD and its molecular background.Mammalian genome : official journal of the International Mammalian Genome Society · 2026Review
- Epigenetic mechanisms in maternal-fetal crosstalk: inter- and trans-generational inheritance.Epigenomics · 2025Review
- Article
- Cardiometabolic disease management: influences from epigenetics.Epigenomics · 2025Review
- Prenatal maternal stress in rats alters the epigenetic and transcriptomic landscape of the maternal-fetal interface across four generations.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Epigenetic modifications and transgenerational inheritance in women victims of violence (EWVV).Environmental epigenetics · 2025Review
- Early-life prefrontal cortex inhibition and early-life stress lead to long-lasting behavioral, transcriptional, and physiological impairments.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Epigenomics and the Brain-gut Axis: Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Therapeutic Challenges.Journal of translational gastroenterology · 2024Article
- Transgenerational effects of early life stress on the fecal microbiota in mice.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Inter- and transgenerational heritability of preconception chronic stress or alcohol exposure: Translational outcomes in brain and behavior.Neurobiology of stress · 2024Article
- A Survey of Fatty Acid Content of the Male Reproductive System in Mice Supplemented With Arachidonic Acid.Journal of lipids · 2024Article
- Effects of paternal arachidonic acid supplementation on offspring behavior and hypothalamus inflammation markers in the mouse.PloS one · 2024Article
- Early life stress shifts critical periods and causes precocious visual cortex development.PloS one · 2024Article
- Transgenerational Epigenetic DNA Methylation Editing and Human Disease.Biomolecules · 2023Review
- Increased paternal corticosterone exposure influences offspring behaviour and expression of urinary pheromones.BMC biology · 2023Article
- Article
- Paternal early life stress exerts intergenerational effects on male C57Bl/6J offspring risk-taking behaviors and predator scent-induced c-Fos expression.Neuronal signaling · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In the past decades, evidence supporting the transmission of acquired traits across generations has reshaped the field of genetics and the understanding of disease susceptibility. In humans, pioneer studies showed that exposure to famine, endocrine disruptors or trauma can affect descendants, and has led to a paradigm shift in thinking about heredity. Studies in humans have however been limited by the low number of successive generations, the different conditions that can be examined, and the lack of mechanistic insight they can provide. Animal models have been instrumental to circumvent these limitations and allowed studies on the mechanisms of inheritance of environmentally induced traits across generations in controlled and reproducible settings. However, most models available today are only intergenerational and do not demonstrate transmission beyond the direct offspring of exposed individuals. Here, we report transgenerational transmission of behavioral and metabolic phenotypes up to the 4th generation in a mouse model of paternal postnatal trauma (MSUS). Based on large animal numbers (up to 124 per group) from several independent breedings conducted 10 years apart by different experimenters, we show that depressive-like behaviors are transmitted to the offspring until the third generation, and risk-taking and glucose dysregulation until the fourth generation via males. The symptoms are consistent and reproducible, and persist with similar severity across generations. These results provide strong evidence that adverse conditions in early postnatal life can have transgenerational effects, and highlight the validity of MSUS as a solid model of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.