Check your subscription status, update your details and more. We now know that cells exchanged during pregnancy can take up residency in our brain. Could they influence our development, health or even behaviour?
Columnist Helen Thomson explores this mysterious cellular legacy Cell from your mother can make it into your brain and stay with you for life We tend to imagine ourselves as having one brain that is entirely our own, built from our own DNA. Yet tucked away within this landscape are cells from other people – our mothers and, for those who have been pregnant, our children. During pregnancy, maternal cells cross the placenta, while fetal cells travel in the opposite direction.
Some remain long after birth, a phenomenon called microchimerism. I’ve always found this bidirectional cellular legacy fascinating, particularly now we know that some of these cells settle in the brain. My children, born via donated eggs, didn’t inherit my DNA, but microchimerism means that some of my cells may nevertheless live within them, while theirs may live within me.
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