https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/6/3/480/5420749
Brain size and cognitive skills are the most dramatically changed traits in humans during evolution and yet the genetic mechanisms underlying these human-specific changes remain elusive. Here, we successfully generated 11 transgenic rhesus monkeys (8 first-generation and 3 second-generation) carrying human copies of MCPH1, an important gene for brain development and brain evolution. Brain-image and tissue-section analyses indicated an altered pattern of neural-cell differentiation, resulting in a delayed neuronal maturation and neural-fiber myelination of the transgenic monkeys, similar to the known evolutionary change of developmental delay (neoteny) in humans. Further brain-transcriptome and tissue-section analyses of major developmental stages showed a marked human-like expression delay of neuron differentiation and synaptic-signaling genes, providing a molecular explanation for the observed brain-developmental delay of the transgenic monkeys. More importantly, the transgenic monkeys exhibited better short-term memory and shorter reaction time compared with the wild-type controls in the delayed-matching-to-sample task. The presented data represent the first attempt to experimentally interrogate the genetic basis of human brain origin using a transgenic monkey model and it values the use of non-human primates in understanding unique human traits.
Essentially, what if we opened up the skull so that the brain has more room to grow, and filled the empty space with lab grown neurons during the brain development process?
Would this result in the brain growing to fit the larger skull and incorperating the additional neurons into its structure? Since the larger brain would be composed of more neurons than a normal brain, would the person it belonged to have better cognitive functions and memory?
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23870462[1]
I've always wondered about this. Our brains must need some sort of stimuli input to form thoughts. Whether it is a sense, a memory, a previous thought, or biological function, etc., your brain can only react to what it's given. If you take all that away, what else is there?
Ultimately I see this as sort of a conundrum with Descartes' "cogito ergo sum" How can you think when there is nothing to think of? And if you cannot think then do you exist?
