About This Project

We humans develop for a really long time. Are certain aspects of our development especially late or early relative to other animals? To answer these questions, we are gathering large amounts of data in a number of species to identify what about our developmental timing is unique to humans and our close relatives.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Previously, researchers would debate about how to find equivalent developmental time points across species, using a few milestones as a rough way to identify equivalent ages between species. This led to much debate among the scientific community. Our work moves science forward because we gather large amounts of data across many stages of development to find equivalent developmental ages between humans and other species. We can also use these data to identify developmental milestones that are either very early or late in humans.

What is the significance of this project?

This work has several direct applications. Researchers rely on neurodevelopment data obtained from non-human species such as rats and mice to make inferences about developmental timing in humans. In our previous work, we launched a web site (http://www.translatingtime.net) that finds equivalent ages across mammalian species, including mice, rats, cats, dogs, and humans. It is essential to be able to relate studies across different experimental animals, and relate these findings to humans. This work can be used to identify what aspects of our developmental are shared with other species and which aspects of development are unique to humans or primates.

What are the goals of the project?

The model currently integrates a large dataset of over 1,000 empirically-derived neural events to translate neurodevelopment time across 18 mammalian species (placental and marsupial mammals) including hamsters, mice, rats, cats, and humans. We are currently seeking funds to publish our findings. We gathered high resolution MRI scans and sectioned material throughout stages of development in various species to show that cells in select brain regions continue to proliferate for much longer than expected in humans compared with mice. In the long term, we plan to gather additional data to find equivalent maturational time points across the lifespan of species. We would finally be able to tell how old your adult cat really is!