This research is part of Constantina Theofanopoulou’s doctoral thesis carried out under the co-supervision of Cedric Boeckx, ICREA researcher at the Institute of Complex Systems at the UB (UBICS) and Erich D. Jarvis, professor at Rockefeller University.
This research is part of Constantina Theofanopoulou's doctoral thesis carried out under the co-supervision of Cedric Boeckx, ICREA researcher at the Institute of Complex Systems at the UB (UBICS) and Erich D. Jarvis, professor at Rockefeller University. Modern humans are characterized by their prosociality, a broad term that encompasses intraspecies empathy, social tolerance, cooperation and altruism. These facets of social cognition have been associated with variations in the oxytocin and vasotocin genes (OT and VT) and their receptors (OTR and VTR). To shed light on the genetic basis of this behaviour, scientists from the University of Barcelona (UB) and Rockefeller University carried out a new study comparing the available genomic sequences of these genes between modern humans, non-human primate species (e.g., chimpanzees, bonobos, and macaques) and, for the first time, archaic humans, using all the available genomes of Neanderthals and Denisovans. In the study, published in the journal Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology , the researchers identified several sites in which modern humans differed from both archaic humans and non-human primates, and others where both modern and archaic humans differed from non-human primates. "We used an interdisciplinary approach to understand the evolution of hominid prosociality through the lens of the oxytocin and vasotocin receptors, where we combined evidence from modern and archaic genomics, population genetics, transcriptomics, and behavioural and neuroscientific studies, among other methods.
TO READ THIS ARTICLE, CREATE YOUR ACCOUNT
And extend your reading, free of charge and with no commitment.
