Scientists have identified a unique human brain immune cell that gives us higher cognitive abilities than other animals, but also makes us vulnerable to neurological disorders such as schizophrenia, autism and epilepsy.
A team of neuroscientists from Yale University analyzed cells in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the region involved in executive control functions shared between humans and primates, and narrowed them down to five found in the human brain. , including an immune cell called glial cells. small.
Microglia help protect the brain rather than prevent disease, and they contain a gene not found in primates that has been linked to neurological and psychiatric diseases.
“We can view the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex as a core part of human identity, but we still don’t know what makes humans unique and what sets us apart from other large species,” said lead author authored by Nenad Sestan.
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is tasked with task setting, interference avoidance, planning inhibition, and modification and reorganization of working memory.
Microglia are present from development into adulthood, but scientists suspect they have implications for susceptibility to certain mental disorders as individuals mature during adolescence.
According to the team, comparative studies show that human neurobiological development is unique.
For example, humans differ from other primates in extending a rapid, fetal-like growth rate of brain mass in the first year after birth, thereby achieving a relatively large brain size in adult. However, they want to find clues as to what will give us higher knowledge.
The team analyzed more than 600,000 copies of a single nucleus from adult humans, chimpanzees, macaques and marmosets in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC).
This led them to determine which cells are species-specific. We humans live in a completely different environment from other primate species, with a unique lifestyle; Glial cells, including microglia, are very sensitive to these differences.
The type of microglia found in the human brain may represent an immune response to the environment.
When the team analyzed the microglia, they discovered that the presence and variations of the FOXP2 gene were associated with verbal dyslexia, a condition in which patients have difficulty producing language or speaking.
Other studies have also shown that FOXP2 is associated with other neuropsychiatric diseases such as autism, schizophrenia and epilepsy.
Sestan and colleagues found that this gene showed primate-specific expression in a subset of excitatory neurons and human-specific expression in microglia.
Source: Daily Mail
Source: Arabic RT
