Genes related to creativity were 'the secret weapon' for the survival of Homo Sapiens
An international team of scientists, led by the University of Granada (UGR) and the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada (ibs.GRANADA), identifies for the first time a set of 267 genes related to creativity and that differentiate Homo Sapiens from Homo Neanderthalensis (Neanderthal) and from the chimpanzee. The research indicates that these genes were their "secret weapon" to avoid extinction.This important finding, published today by the prestigious journal Molecular Psychiatry (Nature), points out that these genes played a fundamental role in the evolution of creativity, self-awareness and cooperativity, giving modern humans a great advantage over hominids that are now extinct. , by providing greater resistance to aging, injury and disease
Creativity, the “secret weapon” of the Homo sapiens, it was a great advantage over the Neanderthals playing an important role in their survival. This is considered by an international team of scientists, led by the University of Granada (UGR) and the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada (ibs.GRANADA), which has identified for the first time a set formed by 267 genes that differentiate the Homo Sapiens of the Neanderthal.
This important scientific finding, published this week by the prestigious magazine Molecular Psychiatry (Nature), points out that these genetic differences related to creativity were what allowed Sapiens to displace Neanderthals in the past. It is creativity that gave the Homo Sapiens advantages beyond the purely cognitive, favoring a greater adaptation to the environment than to hominids today extinct, by providing greater resistance to aging, injury and disease.
Researchers have participated in this work Igor Zwir, Coral del Val, Rocio Romero, Javier Arnedo y Albert Mesa, members of the Translational Bioinformatics research group of ibs.GRANADA, of the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence of the University of Granada (UGR) and the Andalusian Interuniversity Institute for Research in Data Science Computational Intelligence (DaSCI), together with Robert Cloninger (Washington University in St. Louis), Ian Tattersall (American Museum of Natural History, New York) and collaborators from the Young Finns Study (Finland) and the Menninger Clinic (Houston).
This finding is the result of an interdisciplinary research that combines Artificial Intelligence (AI), Molecular Genetics, Neurosciences, Psychology and Anthropology, and is the fifth consecutive article published by this team of researchers in one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the area describing human personality.
The 267 genes identified as unique to the Homo Sapiens by these scientists are part of a larger group of 972 related to personality in healthy adults, also discovered by the same authors. In previous work, they showed that these 972 genes are organized in 3 almost disjoint networks of personality characteristics and that they integrate learning and memory.
Evolution of genetic networks
“These networks have evolved in a staggered manner. The most primitive emerged in monkeys and apes about 40 million years ago, and is responsible for emotional reactivity, that is, it regulates impulses, learning habits, social attachment and conflict resolution", explain the ibs researchers .GRANADA and the UGR. Less than 2 million years ago, the second network emerged, which regulates intentional self-control, that is, self-direction and cooperation for mutual benefit. Finally, about 100.000 years ago, the network of creative self-awareness emerged.
The study published this week revealed that the genes of the oldest network, that of emotional reactivity, were almost identical in Sapiens, Neanderthals and chimpanzees. However, the genes for self-control and self-awareness of Neanderthals were halfway between those of chimpanzees and the homo sapiens.
Most of these 267 genes that distinguish modern humans from Neanderthals and chimpanzees are RNA regulatory genes and not protein-coding genes. The latter are almost all the same in the three species and this research shows that what distinguishes them is the regulation of the expression of their proteins by genes found only in humans. Using genetic markers, gene expression data, and brain magnetic resonance imaging integrated based on Artificial Intelligence techniques, the scientists were able to identify the regions in which those genes and the genes with which they interacted were overexpressed. These regions are involved in human self-awareness and creativity, including those regions strongly associated with human well-being and of recent phylogenetic emergence.
Better resistance
Furthermore, “these genes conferred Homo Sapiens greater physical fitness than hominids now extinct, by providing a greater resistance to aging, injury and disease”, the authors point out. With the help of genetic data, the researchers were able to estimate from these genes that the fitness and well-being of Neanderthals were about 60-70% of Sapiens, meaning that the difference in fitness between them was large.
The findings have broad implications for understanding what allowed Sapiens to displace Neanderthals and other species in the geologically recent past. The authors hypothesize that creativity may have provided selective advantages to Homo sapiens beyond its purely cognitive advantages.
“Living longer and healthier lives may have prolonged the period of juvenile and adolescent learning, which facilitates and enables the accumulation of knowledge. This is a remarkable feature of behaviorally modern humans, and is an important factor in economic and social success." Creativity may have encouraged cooperation among individuals to promote the success of their descendants and their community, allowing for the technological innovation, behavioral flexibility, and exploratory disposition necessary to allow Homo sapiens to spread across the globe more successfully than any other. other human lineages.
In the five studies published by these researchers in the same journal of Nature It has been determined and contrasted with multiple data sources that human behavior is not only fixed or determined by our genes, but also by multiple interactions with the environment. “We can learn and adapt based on our experience, even to the point of modifying the expression of our genes. Human creativity, prosociality and healthy longevity arose as a response to the need to adapt to the harsh and diverse conditions that prevailed between 400.000 and 100.000 years ago”, point out the scientists from ibs.GRANADA and the UGR.
This work is an example of how the use of AI techniques and a treatment of data without any type of bias can help to solve unknowns about the evolution of the human being. The results obtained open the door to the development of new lines of research to promote human well-being, helping us to adapt creatively to overcome critical situations.
Bibliographic reference:
I. Zwir, C. Del-Val, M. Hintsanen, KM Cloninger, R. Romero-Zaliz, A. Mesa, J. Arnedo, R. Salas, GF Poblete, E. Raitoharju, O. Raitakari, L. Keltikangas- Järvinen, G. de Erausquin, I. Tattersall, T. Lehtimäki, CR Cloninger. Evolution of Genetic Networks for Human Creativity. Mol Psychiatry 2021, https://doi.org/10.1038/