The cognitive ability of extinct hominins: bringing down the hierarchy using genomic evidences.

Background: The availability of the full genomes of Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, and Denisovans, as well as modern bioinformatic tools, are opening new possibilities for the understanding of the differences and similarities present in these taxa.

Methods: We searched for cognitive genes, examined their status in the genomes of these three entities. All substitutions present among them were retrieved.

Results: We found 93 nonsynonymous substitutions in 51 cognitive genes, in which the derived allele was present in archaic and modern humans and the ancestral allele in other nonhuman primates.

Conclusions: The general picture obtained is of similarity in cognitive genes between extinct and extant humans.