A Neandertal from Chagyrskaya Cave
The researchers also show that the Chagyrskaya Neandertal was more closely related to the Croatian than to the other Siberian Neandertal which lived some 40,000 years before the Chagyrskaya Neandertal. This shows that Neandertal populations from the West at some point replaced other Neandertal populations in Siberia.
"We also found that genes expressed in the striatum of the brain during adolescence showed more changes that altered the resulting amino acid when compared to other areas of the brain", says Fabrizio Mafessoni, lead author of the study.
The results suggest that the striatum - a part of the brain which coordinates various aspects of cognition, including planning, decision-making, motivation and reward perception - may have played a unique role in Neandertals.
