Scientists grow human and Neanderthal 'hybrid minibrains' to study evolution

Extremely small, ‘sesame seed-size’ brains which have been created from a mix of human and Neanderthal genes lived in petri dishes in a University of California, San Diego laboratory. This can be considered as an evidence to show how the organs have evolved over time. According to the report by Live Science, this is not the first time tiny brains have been grown for research. However, this is the first time when a hybrid has been cultivated out of a human organ with an ancient human cousin.

Studying mini brains 

As a part of the research, scientists replaced the human NOVA1 gene in few stem cells used to grow the minibrains with a NOVA1 gene pieced together from the genetic remnants in bones of long-dead Neanderthals. This was done because the researchers know that NOVA1 plays an important role in brain development. Scientists have always tried to study the evolution of human beings and their brains. One simple way which was to figure this out is through comparing modern genes involved in brain development with those found in the ancient cousins. 

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As per the reports by Live Science, scientists have found plenty of fossilized remains from Neanderthals, who died 37,000 years ago. However, the scientists are yet to find a preserved Neanderthal brain. To come up with a solution for this, the researchers grew tiny, unconscious "minibrains" in petri dishes. While some of the brains were grown using standard human genes, others were altered using the gene-editing tool CRISPR. 

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Alysson Muotri, a neuroscientist at UCSD who led the project, told Nature that the difference between the two types of brains was ‘immediately obvious’. While human mini brains were like smooth spheres, Neanderthal brains were smaller and more irregular. Also, they took a longer time to develop. When a close analysis was done it was revealed that the part-Neanderthal minibrains were more chaotic in their neural activity. Also, they produced different sets of proteins than the all-human ones.

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