‘Neanderthal gene linked to increased pain sensitivity’
28 July 2020
10:27
Neanderthals lived hard lives. The ice-age hunter-gatherers eked out a living across western Eurasia, hunting mammoths, bison and other dangerous animals.
Despite their rough and tumble existence, Neanderthals had a biological predisposition to a heightened sense of pain, finds a first-of-its kind genome study published in Current Biology on 23 July1. Evolutionary geneticists found that the ancient human relatives carried three mutations in a gene encoding the protein NaV1.7, which conveys painful sensations to the spinal cord and brain. They also showed that in a sample of British people, those who had inherited the Neanderthal version of NaV1.7 tend to experience more pain than others.
