Yet-to-be-born's exposure to nicotine may lead to ADHD in future generations

Researchers including an Indian-origin scientist have said that prenatal exposure to nicotine could manifest as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children born a generation later.

Professors Pradeep G. Bhide and Jinmin Zhu from Florida State University College of Medicine have found evidence that ADHD associated with nicotine can be passed across generations.

Bhide, chair of developmental neuroscience and director of the Center for Brain Repair at the College of Medicine, said that what their research and other people's research is showing is that some of the changes in one's genome - whether induced by drugs or by experience - may be permanent and will be transmitted that to their offspring.

Bhide and Zhu, assistant professor of biomedical sciences, used a mouse model to test the hypothesis that hyperactivity induced by prenatal nicotine exposure is transmitted from one generation to the next.

Their data demonstrated that there is a transgenerational transmission via the maternal, but not the paternal, line of descent.

Bhide said that genes are constantly changing, asserting that some are silenced and others are expressed, and that happens not only by hereditary mechanisms, but because of something in the environment or because of what we eat or what we see or what we hear.

He said that so the genetic information that is transmitted to your offspring is qualitatively different than the information you got from your parents, explaining that this is how things change over time in the population.

The findings have been published in the journal The Journal of Neuroscience.