Clues to why human brains grow so large

摘要

TINY brains developed in the lab have shown how our brains grow bigger than those of other apes. At birth, our brains have around three times as many neurons as those of newborn gorillas and chimps, despite similar gestation periods. To understand why, Madeline Lancaster at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and her team grew miniature brain organoids to mimic early brain development in humans, gorillas and chimps.