What makes modern humans unique?

The question of what makes modern humans unique has long driven research. Comparisons with our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, therefore provide fascinating information. The increase in brain size and the production of neurons during brain development is taken into account. Although both Neanderthals and modern humans evolve similarly sized brains, very little is known about whether the brains of modern humans and Neanderthals may have differed in terms of their neuron production during development.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden have now shown that the modern human variant of the TKTL1 protein, which differs from the Neanderthal variant by a single amino acid, is a species proliferation of brain progenitor cells called basal radial Gila in the modern human brain. Basal radial glial cells generate most of the neurons in the developing neocortex, a part of the brain critical to many cognitive abilities. In the frontal lobe of the fetal human brain, the researchers conclude that this single human-specific amino acid substitution in TKTL1 underlies greater neuron production in the developing frontal lobe of the neocortex in modern humans than in Neanderthals.

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