Origin of intelligence, mental illness linked to ancient genetic accident December 2, 2012 in Neuroscience
Excerpt:
“They found that higher mental functions in humans and mice were controlled by the same genes.
The study also showed that when these genes were mutated or damaged, they impaired higher mental functions.”
My comment: In these studies, does extension of an invertebrate to vertebrate model of gene duplications involve the epigenetic tweaking of immense gene networks via the effects of nutrient chemical intake on stochastic gene expression, which is balanced for homeostasis by the metabolism of the nutrients to species-specific pheromones that control reproduction? If so, mutated or damaged genes that impaired higher mental functions would be selected against. At the same time organisms from microbes to man select for the nutrient chemicals responsible for individual survival as their conspecifics control species survival (via pheromone controlled reproduction). How do mutations — at any time during adaptive evolution — positively contribute to the required ecological, social, neurogenic, or socio-cognitive niche construction that is nutrient chemical-dependent and pheromone-controlled?
Has the model of adaptive evolution changed from genes to behavior and back to an alternative model of genes to behavior to mutated genes that result in more intelligent behavior? In the honeybee model of invertebrate behavior, mutations are not adaptive and the bees clearly have developed an unparalleled eusocial socio-cognitive niche. Which invertebrate species is used to model mutations that are adaptive?
James V. Kohl detailedl how quantized energy-dependent microRNA biogenesis links the pheromone-controlled physiology of reproduction to biophysically constrained viral latency and healthy longevity. Links from what organisms eat to the enzyme-dependent metabolism of food also link metabolic networks to microRNA-mediated genetic networks in the context of RNA interference. Drug therapies alter RNA interference by altering cell type differentiation in all cells of all individuals of all species. For comparison, during the past 26 years, Kohl has detailed how the chemistry of protein folding is biophysically constrained at every level of biological organization by conserved molecular mechanisms.