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Quote by Thomas Hayden

“All sorts of changes in cellular machinery have shown up that have nothing to do with the sequence of DNA but still have profound, and heritable, impacts for generations to come. For example, malnourished rats give birth to undersized pups that, even if well fed, grow up to give birth to undersized pups. Which means, among other things, that poor old Lamarck was right—at least some acquired traits can be passed down.”

Quote by Thomas Hayden

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Thomas Hayden

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“My colleague Rachel Yehuda studied rates of PTSD in adult New Yorkers who had been assaulted or rapes. Those whose mothers were Holocaust survivors with PTSD had a significantly higher rate of developing serious psychological problems after these traumatic experiences. The most reasonable explanation is that their upbringing had left them with a vulnerable physiology, making it difficult for them to regain their equilibrium after being violated. Yehuda found a similar vulnerability in the children of pregnant women who were in the World Trade Center that fatal day in 2001. Similarly, the reactions of children to painful events are largely determined by how calm or stressed their parents are.”

“From the famed but ethically bankrupt experiments of Harry Harlow, to the excruciating testimonies of refugees and concentration camp survivors, science and history are replete with the mind-shattering and life-altering impacts of psychological trauma. For carnivores, the story is eerily similar. With drastic losses of habitat, a constant threat from hunters, high mortality, and unreliable food sources, life for the average carnivore has changed dramatically and rapidly from historic norms. Under highly stressful physical or emotional conditions (food deprivation, decreased habitat, loss of one's mother, social disruption), species-normative brain processes are compromised. What goes around on the outside, comes around on the inside. Each unusual change in the environment telegraphs directly into the brain and body, altering the organism's inner blueprint. These neuroepigenetic changes then are expressed as variations in personality, stress regulation, and immunological resilience. The result is a puma who is not quite a puma.”

“Hope is Nature's Defibrillator (The Sonnet) Hope is nature's defibrillator that, Electrifies the heart to unsubmission. Hope rescues us from the depths of despair, Hope drags the being even out of cremation. Hope lights the way when clouds convene, Hope brings sight when smog sets in. Hope is the bird that heralds the dawn, Hope is the answer to all things disheartening. Never let intellect trod on the sapling of hope, When things get rough intellect is first to scarper. The brain needs backbone to trudge through hardship, Without hope, backbone is first to lose its caper. But again, most times inaction sets in, disguised as hope. Real hope sets you on fire, it doesn't make you mellow.”

“There is compelling evidence to argue that cells can sense and respond to the stiffness of their ECM and that they transmit these cues to the nucleus to alter their shape and modify their chromatin accessibility either directly or indirectly by modulating cellular metabolism. What has yet to be determined is whether these tension-induced changes in chromatin modification and chromosomal localization are accompanied by specific differences in gene expression and whether altering the metabolic state of the cell could modify these phenotypes. Moreover, whether similar effect occur in fibrotic, stiffened tumor tissues and if this influences gene expression to drive a tumor-like behavior in the cells and tissue remain unclear.”

“Epigenetics reveals that your body isn’t a genetically predetermined flesh robot, but is regulated by a set of gene switches that can be turned on or off—by you—mindfully. Ergo, our genes aren’t our destiny. We have far more control over their expression than most ever imagined.”