Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Neural Regulation

Neural Regulation

Digestion begins with a cephalic phase that prepares the digestive system to receive food. When our brain processes visual or olfactory information about food, it triggers impulses in the cranial nerves innervating the salivary glands and stomach to prepare for food.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Progenitor Diversity and Architecture of the Human Ganglionic Eminences Shaping the Basal Ganglia.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026

Same author

Single-cell analysis of dup15q syndrome reveals developmental and postnatal molecular changes in autism.

Nature communications·2025

Same author

The role of exploration and exploitation in primate communication.

Proceedings. Biological sciences·2025

Same author

Molecular and cellular dynamics of the developing human neocortex.

Nature·2025

Same author

Tile by tile: capturing the evolutionary mosaic of human conditions.

Current opinion in genetics & development·2024

Same author

Language: A special cognitive gadget: Comment on "Language follows a distinct mode of extra-genomic evolution" by Balthasar Bickel, Anne-Lise Giraud, Klaus Zuberb..hler, Carel P. van Schaik.

Physics of life reviews·2024

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 24, 2025

Isolation and Cultivation of Neural Progenitors Followed by Chromatin-Immunoprecipitation of Histone 3 Lysine 79 Dimethylation Mark

Isolation and Cultivation of Neural Progenitors Followed by Chromatin-Immunoprecipitation of Histone 3 Lysine 79 Dimethylation Mark

Published on: January 26, 2018

Modern human changes in regulatory regions implicated in cortical development.

Juan Moriano^1,2, Cedric Boeckx^3,4,5

¹Universitat de Barcelona, Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, Barcelona, Spain. jmoriano@ub.edu.

|April 18, 2020

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Modern humans evolved unique gene regulation, unlike Neanderthals. This study identified 212 genes with modern human regulatory changes active in early brain development, offering insights into human evolution.

Keywords:

Chromatin regulation Modern humans Neanderthals/Denisovans Paleogenomics Regulatory regions SETD1A/histone methyltransferase complex

More Related Videos

Electroporation of Sliced Human Cortical Organoids for Studies of Gene Function

Electroporation of Sliced Human Cortical Organoids for Studies of Gene Function

Published on: November 29, 2024

Ex utero Electroporation and Whole Hemisphere Explants: A Simple Experimental Method for Studies of Early Cortical Development

Ex utero Electroporation and Whole Hemisphere Explants: A Simple Experimental Method for Studies of Early Cortical Development

Published on: April 3, 2013

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Dec 24, 2025

Isolation and Cultivation of Neural Progenitors Followed by Chromatin-Immunoprecipitation of Histone 3 Lysine 79 Dimethylation Mark

Isolation and Cultivation of Neural Progenitors Followed by Chromatin-Immunoprecipitation of Histone 3 Lysine 79 Dimethylation Mark

Published on: January 26, 2018

Electroporation of Sliced Human Cortical Organoids for Studies of Gene Function

Electroporation of Sliced Human Cortical Organoids for Studies of Gene Function

Published on: November 29, 2024

Ex utero Electroporation and Whole Hemisphere Explants: A Simple Experimental Method for Studies of Early Cortical Development

Ex utero Electroporation and Whole Hemisphere Explants: A Simple Experimental Method for Studies of Early Cortical Development

Published on: April 3, 2013

Area of Science:

Evolutionary Biology
Genomics
Neuroscience

Background:

Previous studies focused on protein changes between modern humans and extinct relatives.
Regulatory regions, crucial for gene expression, remain understudied in human evolution.
Modern human lineage shows few protein-altering changes compared to Neanderthals/Denisovans.

Purpose of the Study:

Identify regulatory DNA changes specific to modern humans compared to Neanderthals/Denisovans.
Investigate the role of these regulatory changes in early cortical development.
Explore the evolutionary significance of regulatory divergence.

Main Methods:

Integrated paleogenomic data with chromatin modification and interaction data.
Analyzed single-cell gene expression in neural progenitor cells.
Identified genes with modern human nucleotide changes in regulatory regions (enhancers/promoters).

Main Results:

Discovered 212 genes with modern human regulatory changes versus ancestral alleles in Neanderthals/Denisovans.
Found overlap between these regions and positively selected modern human loci and schizophrenia risk loci.
Identified enrichment for the SETD1A histone methyltransferase complex, involved in WNT signaling and neural progenitor proliferation.

Conclusions:

Highlights chromatin regulation as a key, overlooked factor in modern human evolution.
Complements research on protein-coding differences between human species.
Provides candidate genes for studying modern human-specific developmental trajectories.