Genes And Human Brain Evolution

By Gunnar De Winter | October 23rd 2011

The evolution of the human brain is the topic of a lot of research. The researchers, from the University of Chicago, grouped their findings into four lines of evidence:

Early brain development of human beings recruited excess new genes.

Young genes in the fetal brain play a variety of roles.

Positive selection contributed to the evolution of these young early brain development genes.

Lastly, the excess of new genes recruited into the neocortex parallels its origination.

When they compared the estimated dates of the origination of the young genes with phylogenetic trees (see figure 3), the data supports their hypothesis.

Overall, the conclusion is that:

These four lines of evidence suggest that positive selection for brain function may have contributed to the origination of young genes expressed in the developing brain. These data demonstrate a striking recruitment of new genes into the early development of the human brain.

http://www.science20.com/curious_cub/genes_and_human_brain_evolution-83852