ArticleGenome research2012
Extension of cortical synaptic development distinguishes humans from chimpanzees and macaques.
Article in Genome research, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 128 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
128 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 259 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review of the Human Accelerated Regions in Schizophrenia and Related Disorders: Where the Evolutionary and Neurodevelopmental Hypotheses Converge.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Regulatory Evolution and the Genetic Basis of Human Brain Expansion.Journal of molecular evolution · 2026Review
- Sleep Deprivation and Neuronal Hyperexcitation Share Transcriptomic Signatures.Neuropsychopharmacology reports · 2026Article
- Metabolism Controls the Timing of Human Brain Development and Maturation.Journal of inherited metabolic disease · 2026Review
- Tracing infant sleep neurophysiology longitudinally from 3 to 6 months: EEG insights into brain development.Npj biological timing and sleep · 2026Article
- Primate gut microbiota induce evolutionarily salient changes in mouse neurodevelopment.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Marsupial single-cell transcriptomics identifies temporal diversity in mammalian developmental programs.Developmental cell · 2025Article
- Human-specific features of the cerebellum and ZP2-regulated synapse development.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Exploring the singularity of human neurons: keep calm and carry on.Frontiers in synaptic neuroscience · 2025Review
- Article
- Combined small-molecule treatment accelerates maturation of human pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons.Nature biotechnology · 2024Article
- Long non-coding RNAs expression and regulation across different brain regions in primates.Scientific data · 2024Article
- Oxygen and the Spark of Human Brain Evolution: Complex Interactions of Metabolism and Cortical Expansion across Development and Evolution.The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry · 2024Article
- The Differences in the Developmental Stages of the Cardiomyocytes and Endothelial Cells in Human and Mouse Embryos at the Single-Cell Level.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Human neuronal maturation comes of age: cellular mechanisms and species differences.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2024Review
- Human resilience depends on distinctively human brain circuitry and development.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2024Article
- The 3D Genome in Brain Development: An Exploration of Molecular Mechanisms and Experimental Methods.Neuroscience insights · 2024Review
- TAD evolutionary and functional characterization reveals diversity in mammalian TAD boundary properties and function.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Isochronic development of cortical synapses in primates and mice.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Brain developmental and cortical connectivity changes in transgenic monkeys carrying the human-specific duplicated geneNational science review · 2023Article
68 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
16 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Over the course of ontogenesis, the human brain and human cognitive abilities develop in parallel, resulting in a phenotype strikingly distinct from that of other primates. Here, we used microarrays and RNA-sequencing to examine human-specific gene expression changes taking place during postnatal brain development in the prefrontal cortex and cerebellum of humans, chimpanzees, and rhesus macaques. We show that the most prominent human-specific expression change affects genes associated with synaptic functions and represents an extreme shift in the timing of synaptic development in the prefrontal cortex, but not the cerebellum. Consequently, peak expression of synaptic genes in the prefrontal cortex is shifted from <1 yr in chimpanzees and macaques to 5 yr in humans. This result was supported by protein expression profiles of synaptic density markers and by direct observation of synaptic density by electron microscopy. Mechanistically, the human-specific change in timing of synaptic development involves the MEF2A-mediated activity-dependent regulatory pathway. Evolutionarily, this change may have taken place after the split of the human and the Neanderthal lineages.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.