New research published in The Journal of Neuroscience has found that the cognitive benefits of physical exercise can be transmitted transgenerationally from grandfathers to grandsons. This means that exercise-induced cognitive improvements may persist across multiple generations.
The study, led by Elisa Cintado and colleagues, investigated whether cognitive enhancements resulting from exercise could be passed down from the grandparental generation to the second-generation male mice. The researchers used three generations of mice: F0 (grandfathers), F1 (fathers), and F2 (grandsons).
The results showed that the F2 mice whose grandfathers had exercised demonstrated significantly better cognitive performance than those whose grandfathers were sedentary. This was observed across multiple tests, including non-spatial memory, spatial memory, and aversive memory.
Interestingly, there were no significant differences between the F2 mice with exercising grandfathers and those with sedentary grandfathers in measures of adult hippocampal neurogenesis. However, microRNA analysis revealed 35 differentially expressed microRNAs in the hippocampus of F2 mice with exercising grandfathers, with two specific microRNAs showing a robust negative correlation with cognitive performance.
While this study primarily focused on male mice and did not explore potential sex differences, future research should include female offspring to determine whether similar effects are observed across sexes. The findings suggest that epigenetic mechanisms, potentially mediated by specific microRNAs, may play a role in the transgenerational transmission of exercise-induced cognitive benefits.
Source: https://www.psypost.org/study-finds-grandfathers-workouts-enhance-grandsons-cognition-in-mice/