Geneticists have discovered a unique gene that distinguish man from the monkeys
MOSCOW, 1 Jul — RIA Novosti. Genetics found in human DNA unique NOTCH2NL gene responsible for the unusually large size of our brain and unique structure of the cerebral cortex. His description was published in two papers in the journal Cell.
“The two major human traits — the large size of the brain and delayed development of the nervous system inside the womb of the mother. Now we have managed to reveal molecular mechanisms of development and that and the other features of Homo sapiens, which, as it turned out, included at the earliest stages of brain development,” said David Haussler (David Haussler) from the University of California, Santa Cruz (USA).
The genomes of humans and chimpanzees the same 99%, but our nervous systems are developing in completely different ways and suffer from different problems in old age. These differences prevent scientists to use primates to study the various diseases and how people acquired the ability to speak coherently and think.
In recent years, scientists have discovered several hundred genes responsible for brain development and differ in structure in the genomes of humans and chimpanzees. However, they have not been able to find those DNA regions that are responsible for unusually large compared to the rest of the body, the size of our brain. Many neuroscientists and geneticists suspect the reason for the striking differences between the two types lies not so much in the structure of genes, but differences in their activity in different parts of the brain.