Clear In Vivid is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's program in public understanding,

which aims to enrich people's lives through a keener appreciation of our increasingly

scientific and technological world, and to portray the complex humanity of scientists,

engineers, and mathematicians.

I'm Alan Olga, and this is Clear In Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

I'm a neuroscientist by training, and I'm interested in the emotional and cognitive

aspect that can be passed on through our generations.

It's beautiful to think of and experience somehow gaining a message that's so specific

that kids are prepared, they're primed for survival, and that's really what my lab focuses

on, what the Marlon lab focuses on, how parents prepare their offspring for survival.

That's Bianca Jones Marlon.

She studies how stress and trauma experienced by one generation can be communicated to the

next generation, even when parents and offspring have little or no contact with each other.

Our research is aimed at figuring out how that happens, exactly how something to be learned

from an experience is transmitted from parent to child, preparing the child's brain to cope

with adversity.

This is so interesting for me to be talking with you because your work fascinates me.

The thing I think that interests me the most is how you study the effect of trauma on

the brain and its lingering effects.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that a good place to start is to talk about the Netherlands'

experience.

Hands down.

...