Biologists have found that the brains of reptiles and animals have a “sister” relationship.

Biologists studied the brain of a bearded dragon lizard and created its atlas. About informs Naked Science.

About 320 million years ago, some of the marine inhabitants came ashore and gradually evolved into amphibians, reptiles, animals, and birds. The brains of all land animals are similar, and for a long time some scientists believed that the mammalian brain was the result of new features being added to the reptilian brain.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt have refuted this assumption. To do this, they sequenced the bearded dragon’s RNA and found what kinds of nerve cells these lizards might have, including the brain. In total, the researchers analyzed 280,000 agamma brain cells and identified 233 different types of neurons. The Agama brain atlas was compared with the mouse brain atlas. Most regions of the brain contained a mix of ancient (common in mice and agamas) and specific (unique) types of neurons.

The thalamus, which is part of the diencephalon that performs a number of important functions such as transmitting sensory and motor information and regulating circadian rhythms, has attracted special attention of scientists. The thalamus is part of the so-called reptilian brain, but scientists have shown that all of its neurons can be divided into two transcriptomic and anatomical areas. At the same time, one area was similar in reptiles and mammals, while the other changed drastically in the course of evolution.

This proves that the brain of animals and reptiles arose by replacing a common ancestral nervous system to which new types of neurons were added.

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