@article{PB-VRVis-2022-028,
author = {Kaczanowska, Joanna and Ganglberger, Florian and Chernomor, Olga and Kargl, Dominic and Galik, Bence and Hess, Andreas and Moodley, Yoshan and von Haeseler, Arndt and B{\"u}hler, Katja and Haubensak, Wulf},
title = {Molecular archaeology of human cognitive traits},
year = {2022},
journaltitle = {Cell Reports, Vol.40},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111287},
url = {https://www.vrvis.at/publications/PB-VRVis-2022-028},
volume = {40},
abstract = {The brains and minds of our human ancestors remain inaccessible for experimental exploration. Therefore, we reconstructed human cognitive evolution by projecting nonsynonymous/synonymous rate ratios (ω values) in mammalian phylogeny onto the anatomically modern human (AMH) brain. This atlas retraces human neurogenetic selection and allows imputation of ancestral evolution in task-related functional networks (FNs). Adaptive evolution (high ω values) is associated with excitatory neurons and synaptic function. It shifted from FNs for motor control in anthropoid ancestry (60{\textendash}41 mya) to attention in ancient hominoids (26{\textendash}19 mya) and hominids (19{\textendash}7.4 mya). Selection in FNs for language emerged with an early hominin ancestor (7.4{\textendash}1.7 mya) and was later accompanied by adaptive evolution in FNs for strategic thinking during recent (0.8 mya{\textendash}present) speciation of AMHs. This pattern mirrors increasingly complex cognitive demands and suggests that co-selection for language alongside strategic thinking may have separated AMHs from their archaic Denisovan and Neanderthal relatives.},
keywords = {evolutionary genetics, neurogenetic evolution, computational neuroanatomy, human cognition, archaic brains, Neanderthal, Denisovan, language, attention, strategic thinking},
number = {9},
month = {August},
}