Shedding More Light on Neanderthals
Abstract
Certain ailments such as schizophrenia are more common among winter births or at times of lesser solar activity. There would seem to be no point in adapting to the season of birth for a lifetime, but if births in earlier times were seasonal, at least for some of our forebears, the adaptation would not be to the season, which would be the same for all births, but to the climate.
Periods of less solar activity are the cause of ice ages, so schizophrenia and tallying ailments may be adaptations to ice ages or due to such adaptations. During ice ages in Europe there would hardly be enough to feed on in winter, so creatures such as Neanderthals may have hibernated. The loss of braincells in schizophrenia may thus be understood as a phase in hibernation which, if interrupted by daily activity or suppressed by medication, may become pathological but is otherwise healthy and should be allowed.
Introduction
The brains of songbirds adapt to seasonal needs by changing their capacities. Oscine songbirds (e.g. zebra finches, canaries, and white-crowned sparrows) learn their song by imitating those of older members of their own species … The acquisition and production of learned song is made possible by a group of discrete brain nuclei and their connecting pathways, referred to as the “song system”, which has similarities in three groups of birds – songbirds, parrots and hummingbirds – that evolved learned song.
Several of these telencephalic nuclei that participate in the production and acquisition of learned song are small in nestlings, before the onset of song development, and their volume, cell number, cell size, and connections grow during the subsequent weeks or months. As a result of these changes, many of the components of the circuits for the acquisition and production of learned song are formed and connected during the very period when song first develops … We now know that the volume of brain structures can change seasonally and in response to blood hormone levels.
Similar adult neurogenesis has since also been confirmed in fish, amphibians, and reptiles … Swedish neuroscientist Peter Eriksson gave BrdU (a marker) to human cancer patients in an attempt to quantify the progress of their disease by tagging proliferating cancer cells. Unexpectedly the BrdU labeled not only cancer cells but also neurons in the basal ganglia and in the hippocampus.
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