“I think more work is needed to understand what makes us human in terms of brain development.” “I don’t think it’s the end of the story,” he said. He speculates that our mutations may make our neurons move differently than neurons in a Neanderthal’s brain. Nguyen observed that some of the 96 mutations unique to humans altered genes that are likely involved in cell migration. For example, as the cortex develops, individual neurons need to migrate in order to find their proper place. Other mutations may also turn out to be important to our brains. Last year, a team of researchers at the University of California San Diego found that another mutation appears to change the number of connections human neurons make with each other. Other members of Huttner’s lab reported in July that two other mutations change the pace at which developing brain cells divide. Other researchers are also looking at the list of 96 protein-changing mutations and are running organoid experiments of their own. The new finding does not mean that TKTL1, on its own, offers the secret to what makes us human. “This is really a tour de force,” said Laurent Nguyen, a neuroscientist at the University of Liège in Belgium who was not involved in the study. According to a study from 2018, the human frontal lobe has far more neurons than the same region in chimpanzees does.Īlso Read | This jellyfish can live forever. The region of the cortex just behind our eyes, known as the frontal lobe, is essential for some of our most complex thoughts. Our brain also has distinctive anatomical features. The most obvious feature of the human brain is its size - four times as large as that of chimpanzees, our closest living relatives. For decades, scientists have been comparing the anatomy of our brain with that of other mammals to understand how those sophisticated faculties evolved. The human brain allows us to do things that other living species cannot, such as using full-blown language and making complicated plans for the future. “What we found is one gene that certainly contributes to making us human,” said Wieland Huttner, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, and one of the authors of the study. Also Read | Stone Age skeleton missing foot may show oldest amputation
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