Nature research paper: Whole-genome duplication shaped cell-type evolution in the vertebrate brain go.nature.com/4uyh9C1

Cats age like humans—could studying their brains reveal healthy aging secrets? phys.org/news/2026-06...

“We use geometric morphometry to reconstruct the most complete Homo naledi endocast & find a unique combination of ancestral & modern human-like characteristics: a derived frontal lobe but ancestral size, morphology & cerebrocerebellar proportions.” @dizachster.bsky.social @johnhawks.net in BS&F: 💀🧪

Revealing ancestral evolutionary patterns of the human brain at cell-type resolution, through comparative genomic analysis of open-chromatin regions across apes, old world monkeys & new world monkeys. New integrative paper from @konopkalab.bsky.social in @natcomms.nature.com. 🧠🧬🧪

Very cool new work on cortical folding, led by @r3rt0.bsky.social, showing the influence of the geometry of the the unfolded neocortex 🧪🧠 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This study was supported by NIH funding and an excellent team of collaborators, including @fennak.bsky.social, @mallarinolab.bsky.social, @searslab.bsky.social, Mike DeBerardine, Aunoy Poddar, Miguel Turrero Garcia, and the Paredes, Harwell lab and Berke labs.

Collectively, the broad pattern of inhibitory neuron conservation suggests that, on the mammalian timescale, evolution modifies the brain by ‘teaching old cells new tricks’, rather than inventing novel cell types early in development.

Together, we conclude the TAC3 initial class is conserved across placental mammals, but modifies its gene expression and distribution throughout evolution.

In adult mouse, we identified a rare subpopulation of Th interneurons which expresses residual Tac2 (TAC3). Using the Allen institute’s Merscope data, we find this rare Tac2-expressing population is spatially restricted to the ventromedial striatum.

Through integrated analysis of adult mouse, marmoset, and human striatal inhibitory neurons, we confirmed the homology of Th interneurons in adult mouse and TAC3 interneurons in the adult primate.

Surprisingly, we find that the population was hiding in plain sight, but disguised by the loss of TAC3 (called Tac2 in mouse) and gain of Th expression, indicating an unappreciated homology between rodent Th and mammalian TAC3 striatal interneurons.

Given the conservation of this initial class in Laurasiatherians and marsupials, we next investigate the Glire lineage (rabbit, naked mole rat, rat, mouse), as the population was reported missing in mouse.

Although the TAC3 initial class is conserved to marsupials (opossum and sugar glider), we observe turnover of signaling pathway genes across multiple timescales, and an additional migratory destination in Laurasiatherian (pig and ferret) cortex

Through integrative analysis, we find that initial classes of inhibitory neurons are conserved across placental mammals. Surprisingly, this conservation includes the MGE-derived TAC3 initial class, which was previously thought to be a primate-specific striatal interneuron population

We begin by performing cross-species analysis of developing initial classes of both striatal and cortical inhibitory neuron populations by integrating single cell sequencing data from 8 mammals, spanning from primates to marsupials.

Our new manuscript, led by Emily Corrigan, examines inhibitory neuron diversity across approximately 160 million years of evolutionary divergence, as part of BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN) developing brain atlas package: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨New preprint🚨, sharpening our characterisation of regulatory changes and human brain evolution. Thanks to new FANTOM6 data, we now focus on noncoding RNAs and how ncRNA–TF cooperation + selective cis-regulatory rewiring could have contributed to sapiens-specific aspects of cortical development 🧪🧠🧬

Chimpanzee calls trigger unique brain activity in humans, revealing shared vocal processing skills share.google/MxYIz1mLW0k1...

Mind the gaps, mend the gaps lawnchairanthropology.com/2026/06/04/4...

Nice summary of our recent paper on the brain of Homo naledi www.iflscience.com/homo-naledis...

~ 550–520 mya was a dramatic period in evolution... This asks, what if the brain came first? And gives a different of view the Cambrian Explosion An Increase in Animal Diversity was Facilitated by Ecologically-Driven Brain Complexity Throughout the Cambrian🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

🚨 New paper in @nature.com We asked why two hippocampal areas with very different anatomy, CA3 and CA1, often seem to code space so similarly? By recording bats flying up to 200m, we found that the difference was hidden by scale! www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵 1/11

More control wires enable finer control. The Banerjee lab's findings on the neuroanatomical underpinnings of vocal dexterity neatly tie in with a recurring motif in brain evolution: pre-existing pathways can be selectively expanded to increase sensorimotor control and expand behavioral repertoires.

EMBO Young Investigators Tom Baden and Lucia Prieto Godino co-founded the charity TReND in Africa – Teaching and Research in Natural Sciences for Development in Africa. 🧪 Read more about Tom Baden (University of Sussex): https://www.embo.org/people/the-evolution-of-the-human-brain/

90% of people are right-handed, and no other primate species comes close to this level of hand preference. A new Oxford-led study suggests the reason may lie in two defining features of human evolution: walking on two legs and the expansion of the human brain. More info ⬇️ https://bit.ly/42Cbvnc

Once dismissed as “non-functional” or “junk” DNA, TEs played a pivotal role in the evolution of the mammalian brain. Transposable element–mediated evolutionary expansion of Sox2- and Brn2-binding regulatory modules for mammalian neural-cell differentiation🧪 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A short interview in the Guardian on the evolution of the brain, the mystery of consciousness, and why the next generation will be smarter than us... www.theguardian.com/science/2021...

New study on the evolution of primate cognition, brain size, sensory and motor functions, prompted by "recent work showing fishes perform as well as primates on various cognitive tests." 🐟🦍🧪 Great to see such broad comparative perspectives driving research. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

This big fat Von Economo neuron in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex of the human 🧠 is here to celebrate #FluorescenceFriday with a paper acceptance in their honor 🔬👩‍🔬🧪. Congrats to @kinnaryshah.bsky.social @mictott.bsky.social @svitlanabach.bsky.social and the whole team 😀

If humans are getting smarter, why are our brains shrinking? www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

Sneak peek at the US cover for THE THINKING ANIMAL, coming Jan '27. Looking forward to sharing more - soon! @stmartinspress.bsky.social @zcosini.bsky.social

Strain variation identifies a neural substrate for #behavioral #evolution in Drosophila CurrentBiology

In his new book, @romainbrette.bsky.social pushes back against theories that describe the brain as a “biological computer.” In this excerpt, he challenges equating brain evolution with programming, and the universality of neural network models. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/theoretical-...

Very well-timed publication of my most recent work at @royalsociety.org Proc B showcasing the backbone of my future research at @stonybrooku.bsky.social! There is still much to learn about ray-finned fish neurocranial evolution and the diversity of ways brain and endocasts interact in this lineage!

Ray-finned fishes are famously diverse, but we know little about their brains or cranial endocasts. @rodrigoichthys.bsky.social opens this black box with a dice-CT survey of 86 species across the actinopt tree of life. #OA in @royalsocietypublishing.org 🐟🧠 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Very much looking forward to taking part in the Comparative Brain meeting @pasteur.fr in Paris next week. Thanks @k4tj4.bsky.social @r3rt0.bsky.social @juliasliwa.bsky.social for putting together such a great program to think about brain evolution 🧪🧠 braintrees.github.io/ComparativeB...

Why do humans exhibit such a striking right-hand preference? @tpuschel.bsky.social &co study 41 anthropoid species, revealing #Homosapiens as an evolutionary outlier & identifying #bipedalism & #brain expansion as likely drivers of human lateralization @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4ufOvWJ

Very interesting new work by @lingzhongfan.bsky.social & colleagues, identifying an arcuate fasciculus homolog in the marmoset brain — with implications for the evolution of the neural scaffold supporting vocal communication 🧪🧠 www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

“Specific expansion of motor cortical projections in a singing mouse” Great new work by @arkarupbanerjee.bsky.social E. Isco @cliffscience.bsky.social @xmikezheng20.bsky.social @tonyzador.bsky.social & colleagues on the neural basis of vocal dexterity, now out in @nature.com 🧪🧠

Out in the UK today! press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Nice findings on the evolution of cortical cells. Evolutionary origins and transcriptomic innovations of vertebrate Cajal-Retzius cells: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

Maybe, these smaller-brained #Neolithic dogs shared with modern small breeds a wary temperament, which may have served an alerting purpose! Stay tuned for further papers on #dog brains in the coming months! (5/5) 🧪 #science 🏺 #archaeology 🐶🐾🧠

We found no brain size reduction in #Pleistocene protodogs if compared to coeval wolves, and we observed a drastic brain size reduction in Late #Neolithic dogs (size is comparable to modern day terrier and toy breeds). (4/5) 🧪 #science 🏺 #archaeology 🐶🐾🧠

Some have argued that brain size reduction reflects strict standards of recent dog breeding. We looked at wolves and dogs from 35ky to the present, including dingos (returned to the wild) and village dogs (minimal dependency to humans). (3/5) 🧪 #science 🏺 #archaeology 🐶🐾🧠 📷 by Charles J. Sharp

How did domestication modify the brain of a wolf into that of a dog? Reduction in brain size is widely reported in domestication, maybe linked to brain energetics, less predation and fewer cognitive challenges in captivity, behavioural selection... (2/5) 🧪 #science 🏺 #archaeology 🧠🐶🐾

Finally out! #Dog brain size from 35ky to modern breeds! I have been working on dog brains In #ZooArch this past year together with @tcucchi.bsky.social and many other colleagues at the @mnhn.fr in Paris 🇫🇷. Here's the first output (1/5) 🧪 #science 🏺 #archaeology 🐶🐾🧠 doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

Our new paper is out! This is a follow-up to our iOn switch study, presenting a tools-focused framework with expanded use across developing brains in multiple animal species, along with further optimization. Please check it out! www.nature.com/articles/s42...

A short Perspective on xenotransplantation to study human neuron development, evolution and disease @thetransmitter.bsky.social More related articles on human neurobiology coming out soon - thanks a lot to Josh Sanes for the initiative and opportunity! www.thetransmitter.org/human-neurot...

This study suggests Horned dinosaurs may have seen a decline in their intelligence as they grew larger. Endocranial morphology of three early-diverging ceratopsians and implications for the behavior and the evolution of the endocast in ceratopsians 🧪 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Here's the version of the news release from Ohio University that provides a common language explanation of the project: www.ohio.edu/news/2025/11... 2/2