Most of the time it’s a good thing that the human brain has a great ongoing capacity to learn and change. It allows useful adaptation throughout the lifespan and the development of complex skills like language. But it’s possible that this long period of plasticity also exposes the brain to psychiatric illness such as schizophrenia. A new theory posits that Neanderthals were immune to schizophrenia because of the simplicity and short development period of their brain.
Lee Seldon, the author of this theory, said “because of the long maturation time [of modern-day human brains], environmental factors have more time to exert modifying influences on the final outcome.” He suggests that if we had a short window of development opportunity, like the Neanderthals, “we would not have such well-developed language and we would likely not have so much schizophrenia.” (Seldon quotes derived from the Discovery article, Study: Neanderthal Brain Less Troubled.)
3 Comments
Hey, have you considered writing a book. You write really good.
Shorter plasticity might have made schizophrenia less likely to occur. However, I guess different mutations may lead to different vulnerability to particular triggers. It’s possible, that at least in some gene variants those triggers don’t have to occur in late plastic period, or don’t have to occur at all.
genetics
Post a Comment