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How important are pathways other than DNA for transmitting traits from one generation to the next? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk to neuroscientist Frances Champagne from the University of Texas at Austin. Using rodents, Frances studies how early-life experiences affect epigenetic marks and how those marks are passed from one generation to the next. We asked her how those marks influence rat behaviors, why this mechanism alters modern evolutionary theory, and whether the growing interest in epigenetics is vindicating Lamarck’s old ideas about the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
How important are pathways other than DNA for transmitting traits from one generation to the next? On this episode of Big Biology, we talk to neuroscientist Frances Champagne from the University of Texas at Austin. Using rodents, Frances studies how early-life experiences affect epigenetic marks and how those marks are passed from one generation to the next. We asked her how those marks influence rat behaviors, why this mechanism alters modern evolutionary theory, and whether the growing interest in epigenetics is vindicating Lamarck’s old ideas about the inheritance of acquired characteristics.