Mothers who receive mental training before they become pregnant can pass on its cognitive benefits to their young, Tufts University School of Medicine researchers have found.

The effect was not passed on to a third generation and was only inherited if the offspring were conceived within three months of enrichment. So the researchers suspect that the mother passes on this cognitive effect during gestation, perhaps by releasing hormones that prompt epigenetic chemical markers to appear on her unborn child’s genes, regulating their expression after birth.