September 24, 2012 — The Daily Galaxy via Allen Institute for Brain Science
Excerpt: “This study demonstrates the value of a global analysis of gene expression throughout the entire brain and has implications for understanding brain function, development, evolution and disease,” said Ed Lein, Ph.D., Associate Investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science and co-lead author on the paper.
My comment: Nutrient chemicals determine similarities in brain development. The nutrients are metabolized to species-specific mixtures of pheromones that determine individual differences in the development of adaptively evolved personalities and cognitive talents (via ecological, social, neurogenic, and socio-cognitive niche construction).
The epigenetic effects of nutrient chemicals and pheromones on genetically predisposed intracellular signaling and stochastic gene expression have been modeled in the honeybee model organism, which extends to humans the concept of the epigenetic tweaking of immense gene networks in superorganisms that solve problems through the exchange and the selective cancellation and modification of signals.
It is now clear how an environmental drive evolved from that of food ingestion in unicellular organisms to that of socialization in insects. It is also clear that, in mammals, food odors and pheromones cause changes in hormones that have developmental affects on behavior in nutrient-dependent, reproductively fit individuals across species of vertebrates.
The developmental affects on our behavior are manifestations of the epigenetic effects of nutrient chemicals and pheromones on hormones and brain development. If we eliminate consideration for the epigenetic effects of human pheromones, we have an explanation for nutrient chemical-dependent brain similarities, but no explanation for differences in behavior that are pheromone-dependent in all other species.
The differences in behavior are species specific and so are pheromones. What does that tell you about the development of human personalities and cognitive talents?
Does it make sense to examine the value of a global analysis of gene expression throughout the entire brain and its implications for understanding brain function, development, evolution and disease from any perspective that does not include both the epigenetic effects of nutrient chemicals and the epigenetic effects of pheromones on intracellular signaling and stochastic gene expression in species from microbes to man?
