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Fish exposed to the antidepressant drug Prozac pass on altered behaviour to the next three generations, raising questions about what might happen to human children whose mothers take the drug.

At the University of Ottawa, researchers Vance Trudeau and Marilyn Vera-Chang exposed fish eggs and newly-hatched fish to Prozac levels typical of what would cross the human placenta and reach an embryo.

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Trudeau and others had already studied side-effects of these drugs in fish for years, concentrating on potential effects on reproduction.

Photo by Julie Oliver / Postmedia

He and Vera-Chang say they felt the next step should be to look at changes in the reproductive systems of the next generation of fish — the offspring of fish exposed to Prozac. Both researchers study the effects of hormones on the brain.

But the effects they found were a whole new kind: They were changes in fish behaviour.

“They acted very strangely and their stress response was weird,” Trudeau said in an interview.