People with schizophrenia - and then, somehow it will be more beautiful …
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that affects about one in two hundred people on the planet. How long ago the disease appeared - we do not know for sure, but, apparently, in ancient times people were already susceptible to this terrible disease. The first description of schizophrenia is found in the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus, a medical composition written in the 17th century BC. Recently, a team of researchers from the University of Oslo decided to find out if Neanderthals were susceptible to schizophrenia …
The mechanisms for the development of schizophrenia are not yet fully understood, but it is known that the tendency to this disease is often inherited. Despite the fact that fertility problems are common in people with schizophrenia, the incidence of the disease does not decrease. This resilience is an evolutionary puzzle of sorts. Researchers have previously suggested that variants of genes that increase the risk of disease simultaneously give people some benefits, and therefore such mutations were supported by natural selection. Several studies have identified more than 100 DNA regions with mutations that increase the risk of schizophrenia. Apparently, there is no special "schizophrenia gene" - many genes are responsible for the development of the disease.
Norwegian scientists have compared those parts of the genomes of Neanderthal and modern humans, which contain genes associated with the risk of schizophrenia (and these are, first of all, genes responsible for brain function). And it turned out that after all, no - mutations leading to a dangerous disease are not found in the Neanderthal, and, apparently, occurred in our ancestors after the evolutionary paths of the Sapiens and Neanderthals diverged. It turns out that our fossil cousins were not susceptible to a dangerous disease - this is purely our sapient attack.
Scientists immediately cheerfully suggested mental illness - a side effect of some purely human characteristics, such as speech or creative thinking. Supposedly, we are paying with schizophrenia for our high intelligence!
However, you should not flatter yourself: the occurrence of mutations, deviations and mental illness is most likely due to the fact that at a certain stage the intelligence of the sapiens was artificially increased - with the help of genetic intervention from the outside. And it happened about 70-80 thousand years ago, when a person, having passed through the "eye of a needle" of the reduction of his population, simultaneously received qualitatively new signs and features … This is how "Adam" and "Eve" appeared!
It should be added that the results of the Novaja research are not revolutionary. Anthropologists have known for several years that our Neanderthal relatives, to a much lesser extent than modern people, suffered from a number of purely "human" diseases: Alzheimer's disease, autism, Down's syndrome, and - including - from schizophrenia.
What can I say, the heroic slogan "Shiza mows our ranks" is still relevant for contemporaries …
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