An international team has carried out the study and found that a mother's life experience during her childhood can have a direct impact on her offspring's memory and ability to learn, the 'Journal of Neuroscience' reported.

Researchers, led by Rush University Medical Centre, have based their findings on an analysis of laboratory mice.

The team gave a set of infant female mice an enriched environment, including exposure to toys, social interaction and exercise. They stopped the stimulation once adolescence ended and impregnated the mice who subsequently gave birth.

They found that a mother mouse who had a childhood filled with toys, socialising and exercise, gave birth to an offspring with more powerful brains.

To prove that improved memory of the offspring was not the result of better nurturing by mothers who're enriched when they were young, a number of offspring were raised by foster mothers. Even in the offspring raised by non-enriched mothers, they still maintained an improved memory.

"What's so unique about this study is that we provided an enriched environment during pre-adolescence, months before the mice became pregnant, yet the beneficial effect reached into the next generation.

"The offspring had improved memory even without an enriched environment," 'The Daily Telegraph' quoted lead researcher Dean Hartley as saying.

According to the researchers, if a similar phenomenon occurs in humans it could explain why educated middle classes tend to have higher achieving children and lead to ways of helping underachieving sections of society.