Researchers from the Centre for Brain & Disease Research at the Catholic University of Leuven and the Interdisciplinary Research Institute for Human and Molecular Biology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles have discovered that mitochondria, the energy factory in cells, are responsible for the speed at which the brain develops.
According to the research, whose results were published in the Science journal and presented on Thursday, the discovery provides a better understanding of the evolution of the human species and has important implications for certain neurological diseases.
The human brain grows for several years before developing completely, more slowly than in other species (several weeks for mice, for example), but the precise origins of this slow maturation, which is important for its functioning, were still unknown.
Scientists have discovered that the pace of this neuronal maturation is set by mitochondria. These are tiny organisms found in nearly every cell of the body and whose job it is to process oxygen and convert substances from the foods we eat into energy.
“Neurons have an hourglass to measure time, and this hourglass is provided by the mitochondria,” researcher Pierre Vanderhaeghen explained.
This is an important step towards understanding one of the greatest mysteries of biology: what makes the human brain so distinct from other species and why our brain can be so susceptible to certain diseases? he added.
The scientific team made the discovery by developing a new genetic tool that measures the time it takes for neurons to develop.
According to the researchers, this will be useful for accelerating basic and pharmaceutical research into human neurological or psychiatric diseases, which are “severely hampered by the slow pace of human neuronal development.”
The work could have important implications for certain brain diseases that affect the mitochondria and lead to early brain symptoms.
