{"id":217809,"date":"2025-07-14T02:06:56","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T07:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/brain-abnormality-in-modern-humans-linked-to-ancient-neanderthal-dna"},"modified":"2025-07-14T02:06:56","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T07:06:56","slug":"brain-abnormality-in-modern-humans-linked-to-ancient-neanderthal-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/brain-abnormality-in-modern-humans-linked-to-ancient-neanderthal-dna","title":{"rendered":"Brain Abnormality in Modern Humans Linked to Ancient Neanderthal DNA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/brain-abnormality-in-modern-humans-linked-to-ancient-neanderthal-dna.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Significant brain defects known as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chiari_malformation\">Chiari malformations<\/a> could be down the genes some of us have inherited from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/neanderthals\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_self\">Neanderthals<\/a>, according to a new study, causing a mismatch between brain shape and skull shape.<\/p>\n<p>The study focuses on Chiari malformation type I (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hopkinsmedicine.org\/health\/conditions-and-diseases\/chiari-malformation-type-i\">CM-I<\/a>), where the lower part of the brain extends too far into the spinal cord \u2013 typically linked to having a smaller-than-normal <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Occipital_bone\">occipital bone<\/a> at the back of the skull. It can lead to headaches, neck pain, and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hydrocephalus\">more serious conditions<\/a>, and is thought to affect <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.pediatrneurol.2019.12.005\">up to 1 in 100 people<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Several other ancient human species had different skull shapes to our own, and a previous study <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.mehy.2013.07.035\">published in 2013<\/a> put forward the idea that interbreeding between <em>Homo sapiens<\/em> and these other hominins may be a root cause of Chiari malformation type I (CM-I), the mildest type of the group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Significant brain defects known as Chiari malformations could be down the genes some of us have inherited from Neanderthals, according to a new study, causing a mismatch between brain shape and skull shape. The study focuses on Chiari malformation type I (CM-I), where the lower part of the brain extends too far into the spinal [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217809","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\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}