Nervous system [of nematodes] can transmit messages to future generations

Nervous system can transmit messages to future generations

Researchers found a mechanism exhibited in nematodes — worms found in virtually all environmental habitats — that allows nervous system cells (neurons) to communicate with germ cells, which contain genetic and epigenetic information that is transmitted to future generations.
 
The study, led by Prof. Oded Rechavi of Tel Aviv University’s George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and Sagol School of Neuroscience, was published Thursday in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Cell.
 
“The mechanism is controlled by small RNA molecules, which regulate gene expression,” said Rechavi. “We found that small RNAs convey information derived from neurons to the progeny (descendants) and influence a variety of physiological processes, including the food-seeking behavior of the progeny.”
 
The findings, Rechavi said, contradict one of the most basic dogmas in modern biology, where it has long been thought that brain activity could have no impact at all on the fate of future generations.

Nervous system can transmit messages to future generations

Sci - once again, thanks so much for posting interesting articles.  Great stuff.

I have been on the Lamarckian band wagon, long enough to remember Ted (Edward) Steele getting screwed around for his research.  And folks like James A. Shapiro and Corrado Spadafora coming to his defense with hard evidence from their own research.  The tide has turned in the last 25 years.

https://lamarcksevolution.com/

 We recently found that these exosomes are released in the bloodstream and eventually taken up into epididymal spermatozoa, consistent with the emerging view that a transgenerational flow of extrachromosomal RNA connects soma to germline and, further, to next generation embryos. Spermatozoa play a crucial bridging role in this process: they act as collectors of somatic information and as delivering vectors to the next generation. On the whole, this phenomenon is compatible with a Lamarckian-type view and closely resembles Darwinian pangenesis.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication...nheritance

Going back to the C. Spadafora 2017 publication listed above, it just puts a data-based dagger in the idea that novel traits come from random gene mutation, rather than, natural evolution learning from experience during every generation.  It pays it forward - as regulatory (epigenetic) information for development (ontogeny).

My guess that the general public has no idea that Dawkins-like standard view of evolution is just plain wrong.  The evidence has really run-over the old guard in the last 5 years.

Spermatozoa in Non-Mendelian Inheritance sperm-delivered RNA overcome the buffering capacity of the embryos, the novel canalized genomic circuit (Figure 1d) has the potential to redirect the embryonic ontogenesis and generate phenotypic novelties.