Human brain evolution: transcripts, metabolites and their regulators

Date

2013-02-01

Author

Somel, Mehmet
Liu, Xiling
Khaitovich, Philipp

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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What evolutionary events led to the emergence of human cognition? Although the genetic differences separating modern humans from both non-human primates (for example, chimpanzees) and archaic hominins (Neanderthals and Denisovans) are known, linking human-specific mutations to the cognitive phenotype remains a challenge. One strategy is to focus on human-specific changes at the level of intermediate phenotypes, such as gene expression and metabolism, in conjunction with evolutionary changes in gene regulation involving transcription factors, microRNA and proximal regulatory elements. In this Review we show how this strategy has yielded some of the first hints about the mechanisms of human cognition.

Subject Keywords

CENTRAL-NERVOUS-SYSTEM, HUMAN LIFE-HISTORY, GENE-EXPRESSION, PREFRONTAL CORTEX, POSITIVE SELECTION, PRIMATE BRAIN, MOLECULAR EVOLUTION, GLUCOSE-METABOLISM, NATURAL-SELECTION, HUMAN UNIQUENESS

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/40619

Collections

Department of Biology, Article