Three genes indicated in human brain size that facilitates highest functions
Washington — Scientists have pinpointed three genes that may have played a pivotal role in an important milestone in human evolution: the striking increase in brain size that facilitated cognitive advances that helped define what it means to be human. These genes, found only in humans, appeared between 3-million and 4-million years ago, just prior to a period when the fossil record demonstrates a dramatic brain enlargement in ancestral species in the human lineage, researchers said on Thursday. The three nearly identical genes, as well as a fourth non-functional one, are called NOTCH2NL genes, arising from a gene family dating back hundreds of millions of years and heavily involved in embryonic development. The NOTCH2NL genes are particularly active in the reservoir of neural stem cells of the cerebral cortex, the brain’s outer layer responsible for the highest mental functions, such as cognition, language, memory, reasoning and consciousness. The genes were found to delay developme...
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