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However, from police brutality against BIPOC1 to anti-Asian racism2 surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence of modern racism is pervasive. A common illusion is that racism ended when slavery did. BIPOC have historically been excluded, mistreated and deemed inferior in society, making the cycle of generational trauma difficult to break. Research has shown that children of Holocaust survivors present an increased likelihood of developing mental health disorders, specifically anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.īlack, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) continue to struggle with generational trauma and its accompanying negative psychological effects (i.e., feeling inferior, negative coping skills). The most well-studied example of generational trauma is that of Holocaust survivors and their descendants. Generational trauma is defined as trauma that is passed down from those who directly experience it to those without firsthand exposure to the original traumatic event. Consequently, building a comprehensive understanding of historical and persisting racism in America is key to unraveling generational trauma and ending its cycle. Therefore, the trauma created and facilitated by systemic racism in America is not only felt through present-day social injustices but is amplified through a legacy of transgenerational trauma transmission.
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Individual trauma is a combination of both lived experience and heritable ancestral trauma (Figure 1). The same evolutionary mechanism that warns future generations of potential danger in mice is observable in humans, and especially so among groups whose ancestors have experienced historical trauma. Memories of trauma can be inherited across generations. The trauma of the conditioned ancestors had been transmitted across generations through their DNA. The researchers found that the succeeding two generations not only exhibited this behavioral sensitivity but also had an increased number of olfactory receptors for detecting the scent of cherry blossoms. When they mated these fear-conditioned mice with naïve unconditioned female mice, their offspring were much more sensitive to the cherry blossom scent compared to the offspring of two naïve parents. Over time, the mice displayed a fear response to the odor, even when a shock was not given. To do this, they introduced the cherry blossom odor into the environment and concurrently delivered an electric foot shock to the mice. At Emory University, researchers conditioned male mice to fear the smell of cherry blossoms.