Tradeoffs, genomic conflicts, and recent positive selection in the evolution of human cognitive architecture

我们的研究旨在帮助我们更好地了解人脑是如何工作的，以及人类神经多样性的模式(心理特征的变化)是如何进化和保持的。将开展三个主要项目。人类心理特征之间的权衡。人类拥有非凡的认知能力，既包括与他人的社会互动，也包括视觉空间技能和技术等非社会能力。我们正在从大量个人那里收集一组基因的遗传数据，这些基因预计涉及社会和非社会认知，以确定这些基因的替代等位基因和基因类型是否相对于非社会兴趣和技能起到了中介作用。我们特别关注(1)影响人类移情相关特征和技能的基因，(2)影响人类科学、技术、工程和数学相关特征和技能的基因，以及(3)与某些精神障碍(特别是自闭症和精神分裂症)有关的基因。这些结果有望有助于理解和培养同理心和技术技能，以及理解精神障碍的遗传原因。影响人类心理的基因冲突。人类基因组包含一组所谓的“印记”基因，这些基因被证明是相互冲突的，因为它们是以不同的方式遗传的。其中一些基因以相反的方向影响婴儿出生体重和婴儿喂养，因此对健康有重要影响。其他这样的“冲突”基因在人脑中表达并产生影响，因此预计会影响人类的心理特征、心理和行为。然而，这些“脑冲突”基因几乎从未在典型的人类群体中被研究过，尽管它们可能对神经多样性和某些精神疾病的风险非常重要。我们正在研究这些基因的变异对人类一系列心理特征的影响，以确定它们如何影响人类心理，以及影响程度。这一结果有望对理解人类的精神健康和精神障碍产生重要影响。人类认知是如何进化的。科学界最大的问题之一是，相对于其他动物，人类是如何以及为什么进化到如此复杂和聪明的。我们将使用一种新的方法来解决这个问题，通过研究与大脑相关的基因，这些基因表明目前人类处于自然选择之下，并收集数据来确定哪些精神特征是被选择的。这些结果应该会为人类认知是如何进化的以及正在进化中提供新的见解。

Our research is designed to help us better understand how the human brain works, and how patterns of human neurodiversity (variation in mental traits) have evolved and are maintained. Three main projects will be conducted. Tradeoffs between human mental traits. Humans have extraordinary cognitive abilities, with regard to both social interactions with other humans, and with regard to non-social abilities such as visual-spatial skills and technology. We are collecting genetic data from large numbers of individuals for a set of genes that are expected to be involved in social and non-social cognition, to determine if alternative alleles and genotypes for such genes mediate social, relative to non-social, interests and skills. We are focusing especially on (1) genes that affect human empathy-related traits and skills, (2) genes that affect human science, technology, engineering, and mathematics-related traits and skills, and (3) genes that have been associated with some mental disorders (especially autism and schizophrenia). The results are expected to be useful in understanding and fostering empathy, and technical skills, as well as in the understanding of the genetic causes of mental disorders. Genetic conflicts affecting human psychology. The human genome contains a set of so-called 'imprinted' genes that have been shown to exhibit forms of conflict with one another because they are inherited in different ways. Some of these genes influence infant birth weight, and infant feeding, in opposite directions, and thus have important impacts on health. Other such 'conflict' genes are expressed, and have their effects, in the human brain, and thus are expected to affect human mental traits, psychology, and behaviour. However, these 'brain conflict' genes have virtually never been studied in typical human populations, although they may be very important in neurodiversity and risks of some mental disorders. We are studying the effects of variation in these genes on a broad set of psychological traits in humans, to determine how, and how much, they impact upon human psychology. The results are expected to have important implications for understanding human mental well-being and psychiatric disorders. How human cognition is evolving. One of the biggest questions in science is how and why humans evolved to be so mentally complex and intelligence, relative to other animals. We will use a new approach to address this question, by studying brain-related genes that show evidence of being currently under natural selection in humans, and collecting data to determine what mental traits are being selected for. The results should provide novel insights into how human cognition has evolved, and is evolving.