Changes in the path of brain development make human brains unique

Tuesday, December 6, 2011 - 18:00 in Biology & Nature

How the human brain and human cognitive abilities evolved in less than six million years has long puzzled scientists. A new study conducted by scientists in China and Germany, and published December 6 in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology, now provides a possible explanation by showing that activity levels of genes in the human brain during development changed substantially compared to chimpanzees and macaques. What's more, these changes might be caused by a handful of key regulatory molecules called microRNAs.

Read the whole article on Physorg

More from Physorg

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net