Thaindian News

London, Mar 24 (ANI): Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany have discovered that Neanderthal brains were like modern human ones at birth but developed differently to ours as they grew older.

They found that the grey matter of our infant ancestors, who became extinct about 28,000 years ago, shared the same shape and size.

Adult Neanderthal brains were less globular and more elongated than ours. They also grew quicker and were slightly larger.

Researchers suggest that this is because human brains spend the first 18 months developing more neural circuitry, helping them think.

Professor Phillipp Gunz, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, said this difference could have helped us survive natural selection.

It is thought that our comparatively slow development growth helped our species evolve additional learning and complex cognition capabilities.

Unlike, a Neanderthal, the size of a modern human brain is no indication of increased intelligence.

To compare the two brains, scientists assembled a virtual Neanderthal brain by scanning skull fragments and comparing the computer models at different stages of growth to the human baby brain.

“There was a huge difference in the way they grew their brain compared to modern humans in the first one-and-a-half and two years,” the Daily Mail quoted Prof Gunz as saying.

“These new findings shed light on how our closest extinct relatives might have thought differently than us, and reveal details about the evolution of our brain.” (ANI)