Enjoyed reading @rcbregman's new book "Humankind"; a good companion to R. Wrangham's "Goodness Paradox" and @bharedogguy & @bonobohandshake's forthcoming "Survival of the Friendliest". 1/
Two new papers that I enjoyed working on and that provide further evidence for the special role played by the #cerebellum (and subcortical structures) in the evolution of our lineage are out 🧠🧵
Thanks @TavernaElena for the invitation to contribute to the volume she is co-editing, and to @david_machugh and @FabriMafe for very thoughtful comments during the reviewing process. They made the paper better.
Kaz Okanoya has done extensive work documenting differences between the songs of the domesticated Bengalese finch and the songs of its wild relative, the white-dumped munia.
Various measures point to increased variability and 'complexity' in the song of the Bengalese finch.
We built on work @Thomas_ORourke and I did showing that the glutamate neurotransmitter system is disproportionately targeted in the evolution of domesticates: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
We decided to take a closer look at the the four major regions of the human genome depleted of Neanderthal introgression presented in Chen et al (overlapping with those identified in previous work by @melanoidin) sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Looking at the brain expression of genes found in these regions, compared to other regions, we found the highest transcriptomic divergence in the cerebellum, the striatum & the prenatal thalamus (intriguing, given the expression profile of #FOXP2, found in one of these regions)
We find evidence for very early mutations impacting the facial phenotype, and much more recent molecular events linked to specific brain regions such as the cerebellum or the precuneus. 2/
I enjoyed working on this with my students @AGMAndirko & @juanandres_mp in otherwise difficult circumstances (lockdowns). They are terrific researchers. I am thankful for the opportunity to work again with friends @MKuhlwilm@polvere7@gtesta72, the best part of the job, IMO. 3/
Beautiful work from J. Wysocka's lab out in @CellStemCell: Loss of Extreme Long-Range Enhancers in Human Neural Crest Drives a Craniofacial Disorder (h/t @polvere7) [Thread 1/] cell.com/cell-stem-cell…
The study shows how mandible development is sensitive to perturbation of SOX9 gene dosage 2/
"even such a slight reduction in Sox9 gene dosage results in measurable changes in lower jaw shape and reduction in postnatal growth" 3/