Michael ZellerNeurorewired LLC · Neurorewiring Expert

Generations of Mice Avoided a Food They Never Feared

5 Sept 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief excerpt, the speaker references a study described in the book It Didn't Start With You where mice were conditioned to associate a normally appetitive flower petal with an electric shock. Although only the original generation experienced the shock, subsequent generations (2‑4 generations later) displayed a persistent avoidance of the flower petal despite never having been shocked themselves. The speaker uses this example to illustrate the concept of transgenerational memory or epigenetic inheritance, suggesting that such mechanisms may underlie phenomena like collective trauma, even though the precise biological coding remains poorly understood.

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There's a study about mice where they would eat this certain flower petal. This is listed in the book, It Didn't Start With You. I don't remember the exact study offhand, but they would take these mice and every time they would eat a flower petal, that's normally like a good food for them, they would get a shock. Well, what happens the next 2, 3 generations, 4 generations of mice? They will not touch the flower petal even though they've never been shocked. Muscle memory passed on. It's like a— we don't fully understand how all the coding is passed on, why we have certain memories and collective, like, collective trauma or memories that we can feel into and see that go far beyond the biochemical breakdown.