Neanderthals learned quicker?

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

https://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/2021-02-11-how-a-single-gene-alteration-may-have-separated-modern-humans-from-predecessors.aspx

: According to Muotri, the neural network changes in
: Neanderthal-ized brain organoids parallel the way
: newborn non-human primates acquire new abilities
: more rapidly than human newborns.

This may be one case where I guessed wrong.

See, I always thought that it was about competing
strategies. Um, competing biology: Different
solutions to the same problem.

As we relied more on hunting, as we relied more on
tool making, on language, "Smarter" kept getting more
and more important. And I always figured that
Neanderthals solved the need for more smarts by
growing larger brains, while Hss grew smarter.

...and then when they met, the bigger brain
genes mixed with the smarter brain genes and modern
humans were born!

But this is saying that Neanderthal brains weren't just
larger but, Neanderthal children (babies?) began to
learn faster than Hss could.

Implications?

To be honest, as perhaps something of an over thinker,
I always wondered if perhaps the genus Homo took a
step BACKWARDS with the loss of Neanderthals. That,
we lost and had to later re-gain ground as far as "Smarts"
go when the Neanderthals were out bred.

DISCLAIMER: I've often wondered if this has happened
more than once, like the asteroid impact(s) of roughly
800,000 years ago...




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https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/643410409576153088

[JTEM is lucky in love AND money]

Okay, so the peanut gallery never even tried but I'll feed you one
implication here:

Child Prodigies.

The thing is, this Neanderthal brain business seems alive and well,
or a similar mutation at least. Some children develop quicker, learn
quicker, and they are called Child Prodigies.

Keep in mind: A Child Prodigy isn't the same thing as a child genius.

A genius is a genius is a genius, but a Child Prodigy is really just a
child operating cognitively at an adult level. And not even necessarily
in all areas!

Child prodigies usually grow into normal adults. They never had
extraordinary abilities, they merely gained them quicker -- learned
them quicker! You can say that their brains developed quicker...

This seems to parallel what they're saying about Neanderthal genes.
They currently believe that Neanderthal brains could start learning
quicker than Hss brains, but NOT that this advanced development
would continue into adulthood.

It's all counter intuitive.

We tend to think that if a 10 year old boy has all the smarts & skills
of an adult male that by the time he's a full fledged adult he'll have
TWICE the intelligence, TWICE the skills. But it doesn't work that way.
Child prodigies get that adult level quicker, but they tend to not go
any further.

So we are seeing something very, Very, VERY much like the results
of the Neanderthal brain studies, and we are seeing it in the modern
population.








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https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/643457783169236992