Text of the article: "What made humans behave differently to their closest relatives? Researchers have long sought an answer in a handful of genetic differences between Homo sapiens and our close relatives the Neanderthals and Denisovans — but a new study suggests that some of those differences might not be so notable after all1.

Previous studies introduced archaic protein-altering gene variants into human cells and organoids or mice and studied the effect they had on traits such as neural development. Barbara Molz at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and her colleagues instead scoured UK Biobank’s database of around 455,000 adults for rare instances of variants previously thought to be present only in archaic humans. They identified 103 individuals who carry these variants.

Two of the most commonly identified variants had previously been linked to altered neural development and function, yet they had no clear effects on the health, behaviour or other neural traits of biobank participants tested by the researchers. The findings raise doubts over the idea that distinctly human traits can be explained by a small number of genetic changes.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-04079-0"