Key Differences Revealed Between Brains of Modern Humans and Neanderthals
What distinguishes the modern human being? Researchers have long been motivated by this question. Comparing us to our nearest cousins, the Neanderthals, so reveals fascinating insights. It is believed that the fundamental causes of the enhanced cognitive capacities that happened during human evolution were a rise in brain size and an increase in neuron creation during brain growth. Although the brains of contemporary humans and Neanderthals grow to be around the same size, nothing is known about whether the creation of neurons in the two species' respective brains varied during development. A basal radial glial cell, a type of progenitor cell that produces neurons during brain development, is shown in a microscopy image as it is dividing. The abundance of basal radial glia and neurons is increased by modern human TKTL1, but not by Neanderthal TKTL1. Science 2022/MPI-CBG/Pinson et al. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresd...