Brain Development And The Neanderthal Mini-brain
The complete genome of the Neanderthal species was sequenced in 2013, from a phalanx (finger bone) Neanderthal fossil found in Siberia.
With this information in hand, the UC San Diego School of Medicine research team sought to isolate Neanderthal genes that were intimately involved in brain development processes. They eventually settled on NOVA1 as a candidate worth studying, and then set about designing an experiment that would prove their hypothesis that NOVA1 had a meaningful impact.
Using the characteristics of NOVA1’s genetic fingerprint as their guide, the researchers applied CRISPR gene-editing technology to malleable stem cells, in order to replicate Neanderthal brain cells in controlled laboratory conditions.
Neanderthal genes can change clusters of human brain tissue, scientists find
By
Katie Hunt, CNN
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(CNN) Brains are not preserved in the fossil record, making it impossible to know how modern human brains differ from our long-extinct ancestors, the Neanderthals.
From fossilized skulls we know that their brains were big slightly bigger than ours, in fact but they tell us little about their neurology and development.
Scientists from the University of California San Diego have come up with an exciting and provocative way to begin to answer this question. They have created blobs of brain tissue genetically modified to carry a gene that belonged to Neanderthals and other archaic hominins but not Homo sapiens.
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.
Lab-grown brainlike organoids altered with an ancient gene began to look and behave differently. The experiments help show how the human brain has evolved.
Creados minicerebroides humanos modificados genéticamente para parecerse a los neandertales elpais.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from elpais.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.