Excerpt from Ashima: "It is said that fish can't remember the past in seven seconds/so in a small fish tank, it doesn't feel bored/because after seven seconds, every inch of it becomes a new world …" This is a poem about love. After a long time, many people mistakenly think that the memory of fish is really only seven seconds. Actually, this is unscientific.
Generally, the memory time of goldfish is about 3 months. In fact, this research began as early as the 1960s, because it was rumored a long time ago that goldfish only had a memory of 7 seconds. So in 1966, American scientists began to study the memory of goldfish and found that the memory of fish is at least 3 days.
Fish's memory is not only long, but also passed on to the next generation.
A research result published in Nature-Communication even subverts people's understanding. Scientists from the University of Otago in New Zealand found that by preserving DNA methylation, the epigenetic memory of zebrafish can be continuously passed on to future generations.
Previous studies have shown that epigenetics is closely related to learning and memory besides the genetic factors that regulate our memory. Epigenetics refers to the genetic chemical modification of DNA that does not change the genetic material, mainly including DNA methylation modification and histone modification. If these modifications occur in gametes, they will be passed on to future generations.
Epigenetic modification (including DNA methylation modification, histone modification, etc. ) is often enough to respond to events (stimuli) experienced by parents (or ancestors several generations ago), which is also called epigenetic memory.