How is genetic memory encoded in DNA?

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The Wikipedia page is very short: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_memory_(psychology)
And it refers to a Lamarckian process? The linked article is a little bit woolly. Are there any known studies definitively showing that genetic memory is encoded in DNA? What can be encoded? How much?

In: Biology

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Anonymous 0 Comments

It isn’t?

Genetic memory is an idea that’s been proposed to explain certain perceived phenomena in individuals’ psyches. But really it’s just a speculative term for what evolutionary biologists call “behavior.”

Behavior is clearly heritable, so there is a genetic aspect to behavior. (But the link between cognition and genes is… complicated, to say the least.) An inherited behavior might seem like a “memory” encoded in one’s genes.

If your parent was alcoholic, it’s possible that you would inherit, genetically, this behavioral trait. You don’t “remember” the alcoholism, you’re just expressing the same behavior as your parent.

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