An assistant professor of psychiatry, Amy Bombay, has studied how trauma is passed through generations specifically, “through a kind of genetic memory.” While trauma is passed through social and psychological pathways there is evidence that epigenetics is also a method of transmission for trauma. This has been studied in the children of Holocaust survivors “in regard to changes in the expression of DNA, not changes to underlying DNA.” She was inspired by her own family’s history with Canadian residential schools. Bombay say that even though the human body is designed to deal with stress, chronic stress can result in other issues.
Source: CBC News. “Lasting effects of trauma reaches across generations through DNA.” September 7, 2015. CBC Radio. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/buffy-sainte-marie-wab-kinew-and-how-dna-remembers-trauma-1.3242375/lasting-effects-of-trauma-reaches-across-generations-through-dna-1.3243897