I dont understand how instinct is transferred from parent to the child through genetics. How can a memory or behaviour be stored in genes? For example a snake has the instinct to hiss but how was that transferred from the parent to the child through genes? And how does it go from being just a genetic memory to actually go into the brain of the new animal and make them perform that behaviour?
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Genome can contain instructions on how to connect neurons together – effectively “pre-programming” a part of the brain.
There is probably many different mechanisms of how it is done – but it looks something like this: one neuron has a “Beacon Gene” active, that releases some special signal protein. The other neuron has a “Seeker Gene” active, that produce a detector that detects that protein, and releases a growth signal protein. This makes the neuron cell to grow in the direction of the “beacon”, until they connect.
Note, that as far as we know, there is no reverse process. The memories cannot be “packed back” into genes. The child will inherit the instincts that their parent had at birth – but all their life experience after that is not inherited. All “genetic memory” must have originated in the genes in the first place.
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