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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		A link between depression in mothers and daughters
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:03
	Publish Date:		2016-04-03 00:00:00
	Description:		Clinical and animal studies have long suggested a link between depression in mothers and their daughters. Now, cognitive neuroscientist Fumiko Hoeft from the University of California, San Francisco has found that mothers do in fact pass down the brain region associated with emotion to their daughters. "In general, it’s very difficult to do an in vivo study, or studying how brain networks are passed on from parent to offspring… so that’s where neuroimaging came in. We decided to scan everyone in the family, which no one has done, or published in the past." In each of these family members, Hoeft looked at the volume of the corticolimbic system, which is believed to govern emotions and has been implicated in mood disorders. "We looked at how they’re similar between mothers and daughters, mothers and sons, fathers and sons, and fathers and daughters. And what we found was that mothers and daughters had very similar amounts of corticolimbic system." This study has paved the way for future brain imaging studies on inheritance patterns. Photo: Tang Ming Tung via Getty Images
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