Scientists at the Texas A&M University College of Medicine have made a breakthrough discovery about the development of the brain. This new information contributes to our understanding of how the part ...

In a recent study published in Science, researchers demonstrated how transketolase-like 1 (TKTL1) gene expression influenced neocortical neurogenesis in modern humans. Study: Human TKTL1 implies ...

Neanderthals are the closest relatives to modern humans. Comparisons with them can therefore provide fascinating insights into what makes present-day humans unique, for example regarding the ...

Serotonin can act as a growth factor for the stem cells in the fetal human brain that determine brain size. During human evolution, the size of the brain increased, especially in a particular part ...

A human-specific gene causes a larger neocortex in the common marmoset, a non-human primate. A human-specific gene causes a larger neocortex in the common marmoset, a non-human primate. The expansion ...

To build the neocortex, a brain area involved in higher cognitive functions, stem cells produce billions of neurons of various types. In a Science study, neuroscientists from Switzerland, Belgium, and ...

Researchers from Dresden uncover a greater neuron production in the frontal lobe during brain development in modern humans than Neandertals, due to the change of a single amino acid in the protein ...

The question of what makes modern humans unique has long been a driving force for researchers. Comparisons with our closest relatives, the Neandertals, therefore provide fascinating insights. The ...

In a bid to better understand, and potentially treat, a host of conditions that affect early cognition, neurodevelopment and the brain later in life, investigators at Johns Hopkins Medicine and ...

The expansion of the human brain during evolution, specifically of the neocortex, is linked to our cognitive abilities such as reasoning and language. A certain gene called ARHGAP11B that is only ...