15 Mutations Resulted In Increased Brain Size

naoursla writes "Researchers at the University of Chicago think they have identified 15 mutations in a gene responsible for brain development that gave humans abilities of abstract thought and planning. The article is at Discover. They plan to insert the gene into mice to 'to see what affect it has on brain development.'"

Only 15?

[DynaSoar]

"Lahn found that the ASPM gene in humans has undergone 15 important mutations since we last shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees, about 5 million years ago."

One would think that the asymmetric laterality associated with language would be one of the important "human" mutations. It's not. Chimps have the same sort of asymmetry as humans in the "language" area of the brain: 'Demonstration of a human-like asymmetry of Wernicke's brain language area homolog in chimpanzee planum temporale.' (Gannon, et al., 1998). I suspect there's going to be far more than 15 mutations required to explain things, going back much, much farther than 5 million years.

Maybe far fetched but..

[tka]

..what happens then? Mices learn to think and you kill'em as soon as you get the results?

Re:Would the skulls get bigger too?

[Otter]

Remember, infant primates (I think it's not just humans) have extremely plastic skulls with distinct pieces that eventually fuse. You're right that over time skulls (and women's pelvises) would need to change to reflect the larger brains, but there is plenty of flexibility to quickly acomodate small, beneficial increases in brain size.

(Glad to see Bruce's career taking off, by the way. I used to work down the hall from him and he's an extremely smart, creative guy and a phenomenally hard worker.)

Obligatory Amazon Spam

[fm6]

Bruce Sterling wrote a very funny story along these lines, called "Our Neural Chernobyl". In his story, the virus used to transport the genes escapes (naturally!), but doesn't actually turn out to be much of a problem for people, except for creating a few navel-gazers. (This goes with a constant theme of Sterling's, that raw intelligence is an overrated commodity.) But the fun begins when the virus jumps to other species. So you get racoons that learn to pick locks, coyotes that organize protection rackets against ranchers, etc. Collected here [amazon.com].

Re:Devil's Advocate here.

[cryptochrome]

I think it'd make life pretty interesting if humans had some competition once again. Maybe give species other than humans a fighting chance for controlling their own survival. I think certain corporations might think twice about razing that forest for development if they knew they'd be running into a pack of intelligent wolves. Of course, knowing humans they won't react well.

Well, I'm off to go campaign for a constitutional amendment giving all sentient beings the vote.

NIMH

[Space]

as in the rats of?

a new race of super-dogs

[glassesmonkey]

Why doesn't some of the more contraversial scientists (human-cloning, clone-of-clone cloners, Clone-Aid wackos) take some other mammals (dogs or chimpanzees) and re-create these dozen or so mutations?!

The implication are staggering. Now that people are buying glow-in-the-dark fish I would really think there would be a market for these mutants. I just hope they don't start with mice, rats, or squirrels.

Questions I am asking myself

[cpu_fusion]

If we splice the genes into a human to give us characteristics of animals, would we call the result a human?

What if we give ourselves hooves? Wings? Erase the capacity for language? At what point do "human rights" cease to apply?

If we splice the genes of a human into an animal, would we call the result a human?

What if we give it human-like limbs, a human heart, or a human mind? At what point do "human rights" begin to apply?

Interesting times are ahead of us my friends, and that can be considered a curse.

(By animal, I'm thinking non-human, and I realize that is a rather debatable definition.)

Re:Would the skulls get bigger too?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about no full skull closure, with the "squishy diamond patch" (never squish it! Dumb baby will result!), already an adaptation to allow our skulls to fit through the birth canal, persisting until adulthood, so the brain could keep growing in a vulnerable dome bubble out through it? Would it become possible for such an adaptation to survive and be beneficial (if the environment was sufficiently non-violent, perhaps yes)