{"id":177698,"date":"2023-12-07T23:27:34","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T05:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/redefining-brain-evolution-unveiling-the-little-brains-role-in-the-human-cognitive-leap"},"modified":"2023-12-07T23:27:34","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T05:27:34","slug":"redefining-brain-evolution-unveiling-the-little-brains-role-in-the-human-cognitive-leap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/redefining-brain-evolution-unveiling-the-little-brains-role-in-the-human-cognitive-leap","title":{"rendered":"Redefining Brain Evolution: Unveiling the \u201cLittle Brain\u2019s\u201d Role in the Human Cognitive Leap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/redefining-brain-evolution-unveiling-the-little-brains-role-in-the-human-cognitive-leap.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The advancement of higher cognitive abilities in humans is predominantly associated with the growth of the neocortex, a brain area key to conscious thinking, movement, and sensory perception. Researchers are increasingly realizing, however, that the \u201clittle brain\u201d or cerebellum also expanded during evolution and probably contributes to the capacities unique to humans, explains Prof. Henrik Kaessmann from the Center for Molecular Biology of <a href=\"https:\/\/scitechdaily.com\/tag\/heidelberg-university\/\">Heidelberg University<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>His research team has \u2013 together with Prof. Dr Stefan Pfister from the Hopp Children\u2019s Cancer Center Heidelberg \u2013 generated comprehensive genetic maps of the development of cells in the cerebella of humans, mice, and opossums. Comparisons of these data reveal both ancestral and species-specific cellular and molecular characteristics of cerebellum development spanning over 160 million years of mammalian evolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The advancement of higher cognitive abilities in humans is predominantly associated with the growth of the neocortex, a brain area key to conscious thinking, movement, and sensory perception. Researchers are increasingly realizing, however, that the \u201clittle brain\u201d or cerebellum also expanded during evolution and probably contributes to the capacities unique to humans, explains Prof. Henrik [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,385,412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-evolution","category-genetics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}