ArticleCurrent biology : CB2019
Neandertal Introgression Sheds Light on Modern Human Endocranial Globularity.
Article in Current biology : CB, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 33 papers.
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33 citing papers in PubMed, 117 citations in OpenAlex.
- Genomic structural variations distinguishing archaic and modern humans are associated with neurodevelopment.iScience · 2026Article
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- A morphological analysis of the modern human frontal bone from Hahnöfersand, Germany.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Reconstructing the 3D genome organization of Neanderthals reveals that chromatin folding shaped phenotypic and sequence divergence.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- DCHS1 Modulates Forebrain Proportions in Modern Humans via a Glycosylation Change.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Optimized phenotyping of complex morphological traits: enhancing discovery of common and rare genetic variants.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2025Article
- The Virtual Database of the Documented Human Osteological Collection (DHOC) of the Certosa Cemetery of Bologna (Italy, 19th-20th Century).American journal of biological anthropology · 2025Article
- A test of the ArchaicEvolution, medicine, and public health · 2025Article
- Enrichment of a subset of Neanderthal polymorphisms in autistic probands and siblings.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Quantitative morphological analysis framework of infant cranial sutures and fontanelles based on CT images.Journal of anatomy · 2024Article
- The coming decade of digital brain research: A vision for neuroscience at the intersection of technology and computing.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- How (and why) languages became more complex as we evolved more prosocial: the human self-domestication view.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- From fossils to mind.Communications biology · 2023Review
- Quantum Leaps in Human Biocultural Evolution and the Relationship to Cranial Capacity.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Article
- What made us "hunter-gatherers of words".Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Article
- Merging morphological and genetic evidence to assess hybridization in Western Eurasian late Pleistocene hominins.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Article
- The contribution of Neanderthal introgression to modern human traits.Current biology : CB · 2022Review
- Predicting Archaic Hominin Phenotypes from Genomic Data.Annual review of genomics and human genetics · 2022Review
- Pan-Africanism vs. single-origin of Homo sapiens: Putting the debate in the light of evolutionary biology.Evolutionary anthropology · 2022Review
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27 authors at 10 institutions in 4 countries.
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Abstract
One of the features that distinguishes modern humans from our extinct relatives and ancestors is a globular shape of the braincase [1-4]. As the endocranium closely mirrors the outer shape of the brain, these differences might reflect altered neural architecture [4, 5]. However, in the absence of fossil brain tissue, the underlying neuroanatomical changes as well as their genetic bases remain elusive. To better understand the biological foundations of modern human endocranial shape, we turn to our closest extinct relatives: the Neandertals. Interbreeding between modern humans and Neandertals has resulted in introgressed fragments of Neandertal DNA in the genomes of present-day non-Africans [6, 7]. Based on shape analyses of fossil skull endocasts, we derive a measure of endocranial globularity from structural MRI scans of thousands of modern humans and study the effects of introgressed fragments of Neandertal DNA on this phenotype. We find that Neandertal alleles on chromosomes 1 and 18 are associated with reduced endocranial globularity. These alleles influence expression of two nearby genes, UBR4 and PHLPP1, which are involved in neurogenesis and myelination, respectively. Our findings show how integration of fossil skull data with archaic genomics and neuroimaging can suggest developmental mechanisms that may contribute to the unique modern human endocranial shape.
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