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Scientists find brain evolution gene |
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Written by asap
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Friday, 18 August 2006 |
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A gene called HAR1F may be the reason we’re smarting than our chimp-like ancestors.
Scientists believe the gene is responsible for the rapid tripling of the brain’s crucial cerebral cortex, according to an article published Thursday in the journal Nature. In just a few million years, that part of the human genome evolved about 70 times faster than the rest of our genetic code.
The discovery of the gene may explain why human brains are triple the size of chimp brains.
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BEHIND THE STUDY
Study co-author David Haussler, director of the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said his team looked at 49 areas that have changed the most between the human and chimpanzee genomes. Haussler focused on an area with “a very dramatic change in a relatively short period of time.”
This one gene didn’t exist until 300 million years ago and is present only in mammals and birds, not fish or animals without backbones. The gene didn’t change much at all and there are only two differences in it between a chimp and a chicken, Haussler said.
There are 18 differences, however, in that one gene between human and chimp and they all seemed to occur in the development of man, he said.
Haussler attributed the dramatic change to the stress of man getting out of trees and walking on two feet.
The scientists still don’t know specifically what the gene does. They do know, however, that this same gene turns on in human fetuses at seven weeks after conception and then shuts down at 19 weeks. | Only registered users can write comments.
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