A living connection
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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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The link between a mother and child is profound, and new research suggests a physical connection even deeper than anyone thought. The profound psychological and physical bonds shared by the mother and her child begin during gestation when the mother is everything for the developing fetus, supplying warmth and sustenance, while her heartbeat provides a soothing constant rhythm.
The physical connection between mother and fetus is provided by the placenta, an organ, built of cells from both the mother and fetus, which serves as a conduit for the exchange of nutrients, gasses, and wastes. Cells may migrate through the placenta between the mother and the fetus, taking up residence in many organs of the body including the lung, thyroid muscle, liver, heart, kidney and skin. These may have a broad range of impacts, from tissue repair and cancer prevention to sparking immune disorders.
It is remarkable that it is so common for cells from one individual to integrate into the tissues of another distinct person. We are accustomed to thinking of ourselves as singular autonomous individuals, and these foreign cells seem to belie that notion, and suggest that most people carry remnants of other individuals. As remarkable as this may be, stunning results from a new study show that cells from other individuals are also found in the brain. In this study, male cells were found in the brains of women and had been living there, in some cases, for several decades. What impact they may have had is now only a guess, but this study revealed that these cells were less common in the brains of women who had Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting they may be related to the health of the brain.
We all consider our bodies to be our own unique being, so the notion that we may harbor cells from other people in our bodies seems strange. Even stranger is the thought that, although we certainly consider our actions and decisions as originating in the activity of our own individual brains, cells from other individuals are living and functioning in that complex structure. However, the mixing of cells from genetically distinct individuals is not at all uncommon. This condition is called chimerism after the fire-breathing Chimera from Greek mythology, a creature that was part serpent part lion and part goat. Naturally occurring chimeras are far less ominous though, and include such creatures as the slime mold and corals.
Microchimerism is the persistent presence of a few genetically distinct cells in an organism. This was first noticed in humans many years ago when cells containing the male “Y” chromosome were found circulating in the blood of women after pregnancy. Since these cells are genetically male, they could not have been the women’s own, but most likely came from their babies during gestation.
In this new study, scientists observed that microchimeric cells are not only found circulating in the blood, they are also embedded in the brain. They examined the brains of deceased women for the presence of cells containing the male “Y” chromosome. They found such cells in more than 60 percent of the brains and in multiple brain regions. Since Alzheimer’s disease is more common in women who have had multiple pregnancies, they suspected that the number of fetal cells would be greater in women with AD compared to those who had no evidence for neurological disease. The results were precisely the opposite: there were fewer fetal-derived cells in women with Alzheimer’s. The reasons are unclear.
Microchimerism most commonly results from the exchange of cells across the placenta during pregnancy, however there is also evidence that cells may be transferred from mother to infant through nursing. In addition to exchange between mother and fetus, there may be exchange of cells between twins in utero, and there is also the possibility that cells from an older sibling residing in the mother may find their way back across the placenta to a younger sibling during the latter’s gestation. Women may have microchimeric cells both from their mother as well as from their own pregnancies, and there is even evidence for competition between cells from grandmother and infant within the mother.
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70 Comments
Add Comment"... may have a broad range of impacts, from tissue repair and cancer prevention to sparking immune disorders."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have to wonder then do mothers statistically outlive women who have never been pregnant? Has this question ever been studied?
More on this topic at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=your-cells-are-my-cells
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe this is the way how unconscious memory (instincts) or sometimes even conscious memories are transferred? Our own and all ancestors lifetime experiences reside somewhere inside us, and the only possibility to store such big amount of information I see in the chemistry inside cells, neurons or some other kind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe my theory that Déjà vu is really memory cells from an ancestor isn't so far fetched.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes. And those that have a child (not necessarily the first) after 35 have been shown to live the longest. The research can be found online. There are websites for late term mothers that publish links to these studies. The Mayo clinic has done at least one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHello JustLooking and JT-----you 2 are obviously on to something. The obstetric literature is replete with studies showing that women who have never had a child have a higher incidence of both breast and ovarian cancers. It's the continuous monthly cycling that causes these mutations. Nature's way is for the woman to be more or less constantly pregant or at least breast feeding which itself would interrupt the monthly cycyles. So, you see there are many variables and the famous Minnesota Twin Study might have some further elucidation. In that study identical twins were separated at birth and were reunited later. The similarities are fascinating and, some, beyond belief.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA transfering of cells would have zilch to do with 'deja vu'. It's not how neurons work. That concept is more the outcome of cheesy 1930 novels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid they also study the brains of men? Maybe foreign cells can migrate there from other sources, such as nucleated cells from blood transplants. Maybe the foreign cells in women aren't really coming from fetuses. Were they genetically matched?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCurious: What is the likelihood of this CAUSING a mental or physical disease in the mother that has had no previous symptoms or family history of that particular illness yet develops it years later after carrying a child that had inherited the disease from the other parent?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis experimental evidence argues in favor of my intuition that women are biologically superior to men. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually we men disappear as a viable species. Male rabbits can reproduce parthenogenetically with no need for male sperm participation. Can this fact be extended eventually to include human females? Quare Some years ago I wrote a medical malpractice fiction in Spanish (Las Empresas Montero) where this actually happened. Sorry for the commercial but you can read it at
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=Dr.+Angell+O.+de+la+Sierra&categoryId=100501&pn=3> :-) Dr.d
this leads me to wonder if a few 'y' cells injected into a woman with Alzheimers, (from her husband), might slow, or defeat the disease.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis makes me wonder if a few 'y' cells from a male (husband), or son, might cause a withdrawai from Alzheimers
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[...], taking up residence in many organs of the body including the lung, thyroid muscle, liver, heart, kidney and skin[...]
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as I know, there is no such thing as a thyroid muscle. I suppose this is only because of a missing coma, but please correct it as it brings confusion.
This is very interesting...while my wife is a very awesome person, she is really not a humerous person.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut - when my wife was pregnant with our 2nd child I kept telling her how funny she was. As soon as she had our son, it ceased.
He has a very unique sense of humor and I always tell that story - we really knew he was going to be a funny guy from BEFORE the time he was born.
This is very interesting...while my wife is a very awesome person, she is really not a humerous person.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut - when my wife was pregnant with our 2nd child I kept telling her how funny she was. As soon as she had our son, it ceased.
He has a very unique sense of humor and I always tell that story - we really knew he was going to be a funny guy from BEFORE the time he was born.
The mother's with multiple births & Alzheimers probably have less microchimeric cells in their brain because these cells have been recognized by their immune system as foreign & destroyed. Perhaps in the process, the resulting inflammation & destruction leads to damage in the brain (abnormal amyloid accumulation) resulting Alzheimers. Mothers having immune systems that do not recognize these cells as foreign, probably are able to derive a benefit form these cells peacefully co-existing within. Their additional genetic contribution potentially expressed in a biological complimentary manners- ie., providing additional immunological recognition/ or repair reconnaissance- perhaps even affecting intelligence and mental health.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was wondering that as well. They just said they found male cells in the brains of women who had been pregnant. They didn't even say whether or not any of the children had been male.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey did say it seemed the transfer could go the other way & through siblings, as well, perhaps some males were included in that part of the study?
There are a lot of unanswered questions here.
Why be so quick to dismiss deja vu as the "outcome of cheesy 1930s novels"? As the Chinese say, "A closed mind is like a closed book--just a block of wood."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt what point in pregnancy does the cell migration begin? Could mothers be carrying cells of, say, previous miscarriages?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs it possible that Alzheimer's could be a result of the body attacking the foreign cells in the brain? It kills the cells but also causes the normal brain cells to deterioriate?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be very difficult to relate the mother's lifetime with the presence of these cells. I don't find this research surprising. Everyone has stem cells inside them, and we already know that they home to sites of injury/inflammation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are on a scientific site so you should know the proper application of "who" and "that".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The connection between mother and child is ever deeper than thought."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClever!
Any evidence of maternal cells residing in their sons? X-chromosome containing cells should be detectable in male offspring in that case.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"however there is also evidence that cells may be transferred from mother to infant through nursing"...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisno wonder why Breast-feeding reduces cancer risk..
one thing they did say is that cells from different people inside the mother will compete with each other. perhaps that is why the effects of pregnancy can be good for cancer but bad for autoimmune disorders. maybe having children is good for the mother, but better if she has less of them. i read the entire article, but didn't find anything about number of children versus benefits and drawbacks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsidering the possibility of such cells "priming" the immune system, I wonder if this helps to drive genetic diversity. People who's parents are more genetically dissimilar would have a better primed immune system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy mother had seven children and later developed breast cancer resulting in a double masectomy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy wife's mother had 5 children (all girls) and developed severe Alzheimers in her early 70's.
The situation is far, far more complex than suggested in the article.
I was thinking the same thing, thanks for posting this, as I was hesitant to sound too new-agey on a "Sci Am" post.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCheck this out - it is amazing on shared memory and consciousness. Be patient with the transcript from that wonderful show, To The Best of Our Knowledge. Here is the link: http://ttbook.org/book/transcript/transcript-darold-treffert-uncut. It's so intriguing along the lines of the shared cell discoveries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo these cells persist throughout the woman's life? Does she end up hosting some of all children's cells in her brain, including the cells of miscarried children never brought to term?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is so interesting! I actually thought this made sense too. I've heard someone say that "cell memory" is the rebirth of souls, or stores us from previous lives. Taking that one step further, perhaps over periods of generational birth, a person indeed carries the right combination of the self to come back in a sense. Why not? I tend to believe though that the soul is permanent and eternal, unaffected by the personal physiology, and yet our personalities and egos have a lot to do with our unconscious self and soul. One thing I have always wondered, is if behavioral memes pass on to our children and grandchildren, explaining how alcohol addiction and personality traits get passed on. In other words, your actions in this life transcend and pass over to the next one, whatever life that may be, we carry over. I believe personally, through introspection and exploration, that the very things we do in this life carry on more than we think. Our successes continue and our failures die out, because we're always evolving.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTelepathic connections, especially between mother and child, could also be enhanced by this apparently genetic transfer mechanism; telepathy between humans has only recently been medically confirmed in multiple (6) different imaging techniques - see Sci Am extensive review 2008 ? A classic experiment in animals (a rabbit and its mother) was conducted by the US navy in 1960's.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen the rabbit was killed the mother showed a massive
emotional response on its EEG monitor.
Yes and it might be found to relate to evolution too. It has always been assumed that only genetic information that existed in the parents from birth is passed onto offspring - maybe information from 'nurture', not only 'nature' can be passed on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe blending of mammalian DNA occurs! Once body fluids mingle, you are the composite of your family tree merged with the family trees (genetically) with all with whom each person's family tree member has merged with.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave you every wondered why you subjectively consider what others think? Especially when you have merged/blended body fluids....they are within us.
Now consider the mitochondrial/DNA...a different strand of bacteria, separate from the nuclear/mammalianDNA within.....It is good to know THYSELF....
"It is remarkable that it is so common for cells from one individual to integrate into the tissues of another distinct person."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, remarkable! Yes, another distinct person!
Memories are stored in synapses, the connections between neurons, not in neurons. There is rather a lot of information about this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMemories are not stored in cells. There is no such thing as memory cells. Memories are stored in synapses, the connection between neurons. What's more, the way your brain represents a concept such as an apple is different from the way it is represented in someone else's brain. Furthermore, the way your brain represents an apple may be inseparable from the way your brain represents and orange. So you can't just give a person one concept even if you were able to somehow transfer your synaptic connections to another person. This isn't the magic you are looking for.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat would be the mechanism that accomplished that? There is no way to pass memories from person to person by passing cells. One analogy, not the best but it works is; imagine I have a book. I want to pass the contents of the book to someone else. So I randomly pick letters from random pages and send them to the recipient, in no special order. There would be no way for the recipient to regenerate the book from those letters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe synaptic organization of the brain is what gives it structure and allows for it to store memories and map inputs to outputs. Passing on a few random cells does not replicate the organization of one person's brain in another's let alone the synaptic weights that are constantly being adjusted.
Are you Stephen King?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article did not explicitly say whether mothers who begat daughters only harbor ever harbor male cells. This seems to me an important idea to leave out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat they don't say is that after you have a child with someone, that person's genetic material is forever present in your body. You aren't just connected to your children and your mother in this way, you are forever connected, in a physical way, to your childen's father.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"since the fetus is genetically half identical to the mother, but partly foreign, due to the father’s genetic contribution." It is kind of weird that they don't mention this anywhere, but soley concentrate on the connection between mother and child. It's like the entire family unit, mother, father, and child are forever present within the mother, in microcosm.
This information has me wondering about hormonally induced breast and ovarian cancers that occurs with some women shortly after childbirth. It has always been thought that it was the estrogen connection inducing these cancers as a result of the pregnancy, lactation, etc. perhaps micro chimerism can now also be investigated as a possible triggering mechanism that evokes an unusually high hormonal response.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't get the ancestral link with regard to deja vu: many deja vu experiences take place in the here and now moment
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSounds like cellular communism to me: no Objectivist would have any part of this! The body is a collection of collectivist cells all working for the good of the body?? - Ridiculous leftist/collectivist nonsense! We are all individuals and worthy in our own right. Divided we stand! (etc., etc, ho-ho-ho)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would think there would be too many other variables to come up with a good answer to that question. Some women, after having kids, give up drinking, smoking and other bad habits while other women go from having a relatively calm life before kids to being constantly stressed out and living on mac and cheese and chicken nuggets and turn into closet drinkers taking anti-depressants. I've seen it both ways.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've always felt that deja vu was from dreams that you don't remember when you wake up. I know it's not scientific, but I fully believe dreams can be foretelling of future events and can also help you sort out times of confusion and uncertainty in your life if you relax enough to let it happen. I also believe that certain people can have connections like mother/child, siblings (particularly twins) or even spouses after time. They say older couples tend to start looking like each other over time. Wonder if this has something to do with it or if it just due to one's propensity to select a mate that looks similar to themselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is a question I'm interested in as well. My child's father (now ex) is bipolar. He inherited it from his mother, who inherited it from her father. (I knew none of this when we decided to have a baby. He was diagnosed later. He wasn't even aware that it ran in the family. It was kept a huge family secret. He also had several aunts/uncles that committed suicide when he was a young child. He knew they died, but didn't know how until much later in life. I suspect they had it as well, although none were officially diagnosed like the others were.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow sad for all the aborted babies living in the mothers' brains.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHa ha, you're right! And this article FURTHERMORE shows how SILLY it is to think that fetuses are important human beings - of course they're just irrelevant parasites mothers have the luxury of killing if they find them to be inconvenient. Just get the abortion and wipe your hands clean of the mistake.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Scientists discover children's cells in mothers' brains" is not a proper headline. "Footballers discover children's cells in mothers' brains", now that's a headline. Otherwise, "Children's cells discovered in mothers' brains" is correct, and we can just assume it was someone's day job
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for asking this. I was thinking the same thing. This sounds like sentimentalized science, not really healthy for anyone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's a good question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder how many women that experienced pupps rash during pregnancy get AD later in life? Is there any link to pupps and getting a Y chromosome embedded in your brain. Are their any women that had the Y chromosome on their brain that never became present?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat's the breakdown of the babies' sexes for the women with the Y chromosome cells embedded in their brain? Do you get more Y cells in your brain from carrying more male babies?
My brain hurts now.
The transference of cells from mother to child
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscould explain instinctive behavior in newborns.
The firmware that allows the software to develop
after birth.
Neural cells are given a jump start to allow newborns
to nurse,breathe,cry,etc.
Otherwise....how would they know....lol
Something has to initiate the impromptu and inordinate amount of requisite oxytocin being purposely manufactured in the expectant mother's brain and it's this microchimeri_sm'uggling that kicks the process into ge_ar'dently.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think maybe more than instincts are encoded in our DNA.In what is now called junk DNA could it one day be found that whole memory fragments of traumatic events of our ancestors be found?This would explain people who seem to be able recall events of past lifetimes.The brain is very complicated and may be able to tap in to these DNA fragments of the past and then make up the rest.Maybe even memories from before we became human.If cells of the babies are in the mother,wouldn't the cells of the mother be found in the child as well?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere is the background information? This article mentions "new research," then offers no supporting information or sourcing. Whose research? Done when and where? SA ought to do better than that... or am I just missing a bibliographic link somewhere? Help!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFeminists world-wide requesting dialysis to remove those disgusting, dreaded and despised male cells.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow fascinating!!! I hope that one day someone determines the medical benefit or lack thereof of this phenomenon. I'm staying tune...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthyroid muscle??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...taking up residence in many organs of the body including the lung, thyroid muscle, liver, heart, kidney and skin"
For some reason this article just popped up again on my radar. Having read through it this time, I realized that its entire premise is flawed and should be corrected or retracted. For example, statements such as the following are entirely false:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“male cells were found in the brains of women and had been living there, in some cases, for several decades”
“microchimeric cells are not only found circulating in the blood, they are also embedded in the brain”.
The scientists did not demonstrate any of the above. In fact, not only did they not even look for male cells in female brains, their results are likely due to contamination.
The authors studied samples of human female brain tissue extracted post-mortem by analyzing this tissue using quantitative PCR. This is a method that allows researchers to determine whether specific regions of DNA are present. They found that many samples were positive for DYS14, a region present on the male Y chromosome. These results tell us absolutely nothing about about cell composition of these tissues.
Although the authors controlled for contamination during their study, they cannot rule out that the tissues were contaminated by men working during the tissue extraction procedure.
The authors cannot rule out contamination because they A) didn't even confirm that the identified male DNA was related to the mothers or mothers' children. In fact, they didn't even confirm that women in this study had even been pregnant with male children!
So where did this DNA come from? Probably nowhere interesting.
Please SciAm, next time vet the research that you all to be published on your site before you start misinforming all of your readers.
What are the ramifications of this research for women who have had one or more pregnancies, but only by using donor eggs rather than their own eggs? Has there been any thinking done re: the long-term health effects for women who have conceived using donor eggs? I thought of it when reading this section of the article: "A fetal microchimeric cell from a pregnancy is recognized by the mother’s immune system partly as belonging to the mother, since the fetus is genetically half identical to the mother, but partly foreign, due to the father’s genetic contribution. This may “prime” the immune system to be alert for cells that are similar to the self, but with some genetic differences. Cancer cells which arise due to genetic mutations are just such cells, and there are studies which suggest that microchimeric cells may stimulate the immune system to stem the growth of tumors. Many more microchimeric cells are found in the blood of healthy women compared to those with breast cancer, for example, suggesting that microchimeric cells can somehow prevent tumor formation. In other circumstances, the immune system turns against the self, causing significant damage. Microchimerism is more common in patients suffering from Multiple Sclerosis than in their healthy siblings, suggesting chimeric cells may have a detrimental role in this disease, perhaps by setting off an autoimmune attack." In the case of pregnancy through a donor egg, the cells from the child would not just be half foreign -- they'd be all foreign. I wonder what impact that would have on the mother's long-term ability to fight cancer and/or susceptibility to auto-immune disorders?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI haven't read through all omf the comments or the background research - so I am confused by some of the statements in this article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen they say cells from 'genetically distinct individuals' what exactly are they claiming ? It doesn't say their DNA was from a "genetically distinct individuals" so perhaps they are cells that have been changed from female to male in some other unknown process ?
I am disappointed in SciAm, as I am so often nowadays, to read such generalised articles without sufficient content to cover the key claims/statements being made.
The term you are looking for is déjà rêvé (already dreamed).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthis is exactly right..all memories are stored in our cells..now think what happens with receiving a donor transplant,or tissue which was cultivated on mice,rats..or else..you certainly receive more than you bargained for..another example are vaccines..apart from fact that vaccines can't ever confer true immunity ,as well as being laden with toxic substances..many also contain genetic material of animals(cultivation of vaccines on monkey tissues, chicken embryos)..now think what consciousness/memory is transferred into humans..truly think about it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthis is amazing documentary look it up on You tube called :''Ghost in you genes''..
consciousness/memory is transferred..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnow think what happens with receiving a donor transplant..or tissue which was cultivated on mice,rats..or else..you receive more than you bargained for
another example are vaccines..apart from fact that vaccines can't ever confer true immunity ,as well as being laden with toxic substances..many also contain genetic material of animals(cultivation of vaccines on monkey tissues, chicken embryos)..now think what consciousness/memory is transferred into humans..truly think about it.
great documentary to watch:''Ghost in your genes''(YT)
This theory is very interesting and may explain much about family characteristics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBreast cancer was know once upon a time as nun's disease. Balance that against death in childbirth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this