Origins of the brain
The synapses that form the junctions between nerve cells are made of many proteins organised together into ‘molecular signal processors’ (middle column, Synapse protein complexity). In vertebrates and invertebrates, these proteins control psychological functions including learning and memory.
Surprisingly, these synapse molecules exist in single-celled animals as a simple set of proteins (where they control response to environment), and this set was built upon to form a larger set used in the brains of invertebrates. This invertebrate set was expanded further in the brains of vertebrate species. The correlation between numbers of nerve cells in the brain of animals and the number of synaptic proteins shows that both contribute to the differences in species (right column).
One of the great scientific challenges is to understand the design principles and origins of the human brain. New research has shed light on the evolutionary origins of the brain and how it evolved into the remarkably complex structure found in humans.
The research suggests that it is not size alone that gives more brain power, but that, during evolution, increasingly sophisticated molecular processing of nerve impulses allowed development of animals with more complex behaviours.
The study shows that two waves of increased sophistication in the structure of nerve junctions could have been the force that allowed complex brains – including our own – to evolve. The big building blocks evolved before big brains.
Current thinking suggests that the protein components of nerve connections – called synapses – are similar in most animals from humble worms to humans and that it is increase in the number of synapses in larger animals that allows more sophisticated thought.
“Our simple view that ‘more nerves’ is sufficient to explain ‘more brain power’ is simply not supported by our study. Although many studies have looked at the number of neurons, none has looked at the molecular composition of neuron connections. We found dramatic differences in the numbers of proteins in the neuron connections between different species.
“We studied around 600 proteins that are found in mammalian synapses and were surprised to find that only 50 per cent of these are also found in invertebrate synapses, and about 25 percent are in single-cell animals, which obviously don’t have a brain.”
Professor Seth Grant Head of the Genes to Cognition Programme at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and leader of the project
Synapses are the junctions between nerves where electrical signals from one cell are transferred through a series of biochemical switches to the next. However, synapses are not simply soldered joints, but mini-processors that give the nervous systems the property of learning and memory.
Remarkably, the study shows that some of the proteins involved in synapse signalling and learning and memory are found in yeast, where they act to respond to signals from their environment, such as stress due to limited food or temperature change.
“The set of proteins found in single-cell animals represents the ancient or ‘protosynapse’ involved with simple behaviours. This set of proteins was embellished by addition of new proteins with the evolution of invertebrates and vertebrates and this has contributed to the more complex behaviours of these animals.
“The number and complexity of proteins in the synapse first exploded when muticellular animals emerged, some billion years ago. A second wave occurred with the appearance of vertebrates, perhaps 500 million years ago.”
Professor Seth Grant Sanger Institute
One of the team’s major achievements was to isolate, for the first time, the synapse proteins from brains of flies, which confirmed that invertebrates have a simpler set of proteins than vertebrates.
Most important for understanding of human thought, they found the expansion in proteins that occurred in vertebrates provided a pool of proteins that were used for making different parts of the brain into the specialised regions such as cortex, cerebellum and spinal cord.
Since the evolution of molecularly complex, ‘big’ synapses occurred before the emergence of large brains, it may be that these molecular evolutionary events were necessary to allow evolution of big brains found in humans, primates and other vertebrates.
Behavioural studies in animals in which mutations have disrupted synapse genes support the conclusion that the synapse proteins that evolved in vertebrates give rise to a wider range of behaviours including those involved with the highest mental functions. For example, one of the ‘vertebrate innovation’ genes called SAP102 is necessary for a mouse to use the correct learning strategy when solving mazes, and when this gene is defective in human it results in a form of mental disability.
“The molecular evolution of the synapse is like the evolution of computer chips – the increasing complexity has given them more power and those animals with the most powerful chips can do the most.”
Professor Seth Grant Sanger Institute
Simple invertebrate species have a set of simple forms of learning powered by molecularly simple synapses, and the complex mammalian species show a wider range of types of learning powered by molecularly very complex synapses.
“It is amazing how a process of Darwinian evolution by tinkering and improvement has generated, from a collection of sensory proteins in yeast, the complex synapse of mammals associated with learning and cognition.”
Dr Richard Emes Lecturer in Bioinformatics at Keele University, and joint first author on the paper
The new findings will be important in understanding normal functioning of the human brain and will be directly relevant to disease studies. Professor Grant’s team have identified recently evolved genes involved in impaired human cognition and modelled those deficits in the mouse.
“This work leads to a new and simple model for understanding the origins and diversity of brains and behaviour in all species. We are one step closer to understanding the logic behind the complexity of human brains.”
Professor Seth Grant Sanger Institute
This research was a collaboration between scientists in the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Edinburgh University and Keele University.
More information
Funding
This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council, GSK, Edinburgh University and the e-Science Institute, and the European Molecular Biology Organization.
Participating Institutions
- Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine, Keele University, Stoke-on-Trent, UK
- Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
- Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK
- Division of Neuroscience, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
- Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Neurobiology Research Unit, Okinawa, Japan
Websites
- Genes2Cognition – http://www.genes2cognition.org/
- Institute for Adaptive Evolution, Edinburgh – http://www.anc.ed.ac.uk/
- Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine, Keele – http://www.keele.ac.uk/research/istm/
Keele University & Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine
Keele University was founded in 1949 to promote interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary scholarship and makes a distinctive contribution to higher education by emphasising the strength of a broad educational programme. It is the largest integrated campus university in the UK, occupying a 617 acre estate in a central location in rural Staffordshire, between Birmingham and Manchester.
Keele’s Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine has grown out of the University’s internationally respected strength in biomedical engineering, and has been rated at the highest level of 5 and 5* by the UK national Research Assessment Exercise. The Institute bridges the interface between new advances in basic science and technology with medicine and clinical practice. It takes a truly multi-disciplinary approach to research, with good integration of engineers, mathematicians, biologists, physicists and clinicians, all in a single unit. The Institute has laboratories at the University’s main campus and state-of-the-art new facilities for translational research with patients at its hospital campus, part of the Keele Medical School. It currently has over 70 faculty and clinical members, 35 research staff, and around 100 doctoral students.
Publications:
Selected websites
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, which receives the majority of its funding from the Wellcome Trust, was founded in 1992. The Institute is responsible for the completion of the sequence of approximately one-third of the human genome as well as genomes of model organisms and more than 90 pathogen genomes. In October 2006, new funding was awarded by the Wellcome Trust to exploit the wealth of genome data now available to answer important questions about health and disease.
The Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. We support the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. Our breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. We are independent of both political and commercial interests.
