'Minibrains' With A Neanderthal Gene Offer Hints About Human Evolution
"Fossils offer a detailed record of early human skulls but not the brains inside
them."
"So researchers have been using genetic material taken from those fossils to search for clues about how the human brain has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years."
"And now they have succeeded in growing human brain organoids, or "minibrains," that contain the Neanderthal variant of a gene called NOVA1, a team reports in the journal Science."
"'The archaic version of the gene changes the shape of these organoids,' says Alysson Muotri, a professor at the University of California, San Diego and the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine. Instead of growing into a sphere with a smooth surface, he says, the Neanderthal organoids have an outermost layer that is uneven."
"Organoids with the ancient NOVA1 gene also appear to mature more quickly and remain smaller than their modern counterparts, Muotri says. 'The neurons start to get more active at very early stages,' he says."
"The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that modern humans evolved big brains that continue to develop long after birth in order to navigate complex social systems."