Folks of non-African heritage residing today share around 2 percent of the DNA with Neanderthals,but scientists are still reluctant to comprehend exactly what those shared genes actually do. According to new research, a Neanderthal gene variant appears to make people who’ve inherited it more susceptible to pain. The variant in question impacts the functioning of nerve fibers, which are responsible for sending signals to the brain that are perceived as pain.Hugo Zeberg of the Karolinska Institute cautions that the team finding doesn’t automatically mean that Neanderthals were more sensitive to pain compared to modern people. He states that they Neanderthal skull were likely”more sensitive to stimuli,”however, the feeling of pain is a product of the way the brain interprets signals from nerves during a person’s body. How that functioned in Neanderthal brains is an open question. Zeberg and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute forEvolutionary Anthropology are now studying other Neanderthal receptor variations, including one connected to healthy pregnancies and yet another that makes people more vulnerable to contracting the novel coronavirus. “People are interested in the significance of the legacy,” states Zeberg. “This is, in a way, an archaeological excavation of our genome.”
