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I wonder if that implies that neanderthals had greater pain sensitivity in general. Pure speculation but it would be interesting if that was related to the app

I wonder if that implies that neanderthals had greater pain sensitivity in general. Pure speculation but it would be interesting if that was related to the apparent harshness and difficulty of life at the time. Perhaps it was something selected for survival.

varjag 6y ago
They didn't survive, so not sure what that says.
- cortic 6y ago
  > in a sample of British people, those who had inherited the Neanderthal version of NaV1.7 Apparently they[we] did survive.
  - varjag 6y ago
    At 0.4% it looks more like a recessive trait.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- ejolto 6y ago
  If we get wiped out in a nuclear war or because of global warming in the next 10k years, Homo Sapiens would have been around for less time than Neanderthals. Thus Neanderthals would have been better at surviving than us. According to wikipedia Homo Sapiens have been around for 300 to 400 thousand years, while Neanderthals existed for 315 thousand to more than 800 thousand years.
  - varjag 6y ago
    Not that it matters here, but an unfalsifiable conjecture is not a very strong argument.
    - ejolto 6y ago
      What exactly is unfalsifiable?
      - varjag 6y ago
        The timespan left for our species.
        ejolto 6y ago
        You don't need to prove the the timespan left for a species in order to prove that the species is better at surviving, assuming better at surviving means surviving for more years. In regards to Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals you just have to wait until Homo Sapiens goes extinct or has been around for a number of years that exceeds that of Neanderthals. Then you can conclude which species was better at surviving.
        varjag 6y ago
        I obviously can not wait 10-400k years, that makes your conjecture unfalsifiable. I could equally well state that humans are going to last 100 million years. Mackrel shark did, and it doesn't even possess any advanced technology.
        ejolto 6y ago
        That's my original point. You can't say whether Neandethals are better or worse at surviving until 10-400k years in the future. Also, I don't agree that a conjecture has to be experimentally proven during your personal lifetime in oder to be falsifiable. E.g. that would make gravity waves unfalsifiable, since they were predicted by Einstein in 1916 but weren't observed until 2016; 61 years after his death.
        varjag 6y ago
        I just observed that they are extinct and we are not, despite coexisting for a substantial period. Their overall adaptation couldn't be that much better than ours. Einstein's theories were falsifiable in multiple ways, with earliest confirming experiments in 1920s. Still, 61 years is within a lifetime. 10k years requires a time machine and makes your proposition pointless. As good as waiting for second coming to see if Bible's right.
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  While they didn't survive until today, they did survive for far longer than we have so far managed to, and in incredibly hostile conditions for the most part, which in itself is an enormous feat and makes you wonder, how did they do it? They also never completely vanished; I have a number Neanderthal-specific alleles (more than most), as have pretty much all people of not exclusively subsaharan descent, and these alleles seem to have some pretty profound effects, some of them quite negative. That may be because these alleles evolved to work in concert with others that we haven't inherited, or for some other reason, but that would be quite valuable knowledge for a huge lot of people. Besides, they're also a fascinating part of our collective history. They apparently had a unique and rich culture of their own; they are thought to have produced works of art before we even arrived in Europe[0] and they built pretty big structures out of stalagmites that appear to have no obvious practical purpose, in Bruniquel cave[1], about 176,000 years ago; by comparison, our ancestors seem to have started doing comparable things only ~60-50ka ago. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02357-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02357-8 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruniquel_Cave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruniquel_Cave
  - varjag 6y ago
    All I implied a lower pain threshold could well be a lack of environmental adaptation, this hasn't anything to do with Neanderthal culture.
  - elliekelly 6y ago
    > They also never completely vanished; I have a number Neanderthal-specific alleles (more than most), as have pretty much all people of not exclusively subsaharan descent, and these alleles seem to have some pretty profound effects, some of them quite negative. Can you elaborate? What kind of effects?
- jb775 6y ago
  I wouldn't say entirely that they "didn't survive" considering we're talking about their genes existing within humans today. Also, long term survival of a species has a lot more to do with luck than you'd think. e.g If cooling temperatures killed off their primary food source and forced them to migrate into human controlled territory where they didn't have experience, they'd be at a disadvantage. But if they lived in a temperature warming era, we may be having the opposite conversation right now. "Guns, Germs, and Steel" is a good summary of this hypothesis.
monkeycantype 6y ago
I wonder whether we can infer this, because although the genes might result in nerves that more sensitively detect trauma and transmit that stimulus, we don't know that neanderthal experience of that pain was more intense, maybe their pain experience to a given stimulus was calibrated differently? Or perhaps, these nerves were slightly more sparsely placed in stouter bodies and had to detect injury across a greater region? It sounds like they had to endure some damage: I like the wikipedia quote: ' It has been remarked that Neanderthals showed a frequency of such injuries comparable to that of modern rodeo professionals, showing frequent contact with large, combative mammals. The pattern of fractures, along with the absence of throwing weapons, suggests that they may have hunted by leaping onto their prey and stabbing or even wrestling it to the ground.' https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0305440395900136?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/030544... via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_anatomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_anatomy
raducu 6y ago
Perhaps because of their hard life and reliance on their strength it was beneficial to have lower pain thresholds so they would avoid injury.

varjag 6y ago

They didn't survive, so not sure what that says.

cortic 6y ago
> in a sample of British people, those who had inherited the Neanderthal version of NaV1.7 Apparently they[we] did survive.
- varjag 6y ago
  At 0.4% it looks more like a recessive trait.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
ejolto 6y ago
If we get wiped out in a nuclear war or because of global warming in the next 10k years, Homo Sapiens would have been around for less time than Neanderthals. Thus Neanderthals would have been better at surviving than us. According to wikipedia Homo Sapiens have been around for 300 to 400 thousand years, while Neanderthals existed for 315 thousand to more than 800 thousand years.
- varjag 6y ago
  Not that it matters here, but an unfalsifiable conjecture is not a very strong argument.
  - ejolto 6y ago
    What exactly is unfalsifiable?
    - varjag 6y ago
      The timespan left for our species.
      - ejolto 6y ago
        You don't need to prove the the timespan left for a species in order to prove that the species is better at surviving, assuming better at surviving means surviving for more years. In regards to Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals you just have to wait until Homo Sapiens goes extinct or has been around for a number of years that exceeds that of Neanderthals. Then you can conclude which species was better at surviving.
        varjag 6y ago
        I obviously can not wait 10-400k years, that makes your conjecture unfalsifiable. I could equally well state that humans are going to last 100 million years. Mackrel shark did, and it doesn't even possess any advanced technology.
        ejolto 6y ago
        That's my original point. You can't say whether Neandethals are better or worse at surviving until 10-400k years in the future. Also, I don't agree that a conjecture has to be experimentally proven during your personal lifetime in oder to be falsifiable. E.g. that would make gravity waves unfalsifiable, since they were predicted by Einstein in 1916 but weren't observed until 2016; 61 years after his death.
        varjag 6y ago
        I just observed that they are extinct and we are not, despite coexisting for a substantial period. Their overall adaptation couldn't be that much better than ours. Einstein's theories were falsifiable in multiple ways, with earliest confirming experiments in 1920s. Still, 61 years is within a lifetime. 10k years requires a time machine and makes your proposition pointless. As good as waiting for second coming to see if Bible's right.
dividedbyzero 6y ago
While they didn't survive until today, they did survive for far longer than we have so far managed to, and in incredibly hostile conditions for the most part, which in itself is an enormous feat and makes you wonder, how did they do it? They also never completely vanished; I have a number Neanderthal-specific alleles (more than most), as have pretty much all people of not exclusively subsaharan descent, and these alleles seem to have some pretty profound effects, some of them quite negative. That may be because these alleles evolved to work in concert with others that we haven't inherited, or for some other reason, but that would be quite valuable knowledge for a huge lot of people. Besides, they're also a fascinating part of our collective history. They apparently had a unique and rich culture of their own; they are thought to have produced works of art before we even arrived in Europe[0] and they built pretty big structures out of stalagmites that appear to have no obvious practical purpose, in Bruniquel cave[1], about 176,000 years ago; by comparison, our ancestors seem to have started doing comparable things only ~60-50ka ago. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02357-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02357-8 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruniquel_Cave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruniquel_Cave
- varjag 6y ago
  All I implied a lower pain threshold could well be a lack of environmental adaptation, this hasn't anything to do with Neanderthal culture.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  > They also never completely vanished; I have a number Neanderthal-specific alleles (more than most), as have pretty much all people of not exclusively subsaharan descent, and these alleles seem to have some pretty profound effects, some of them quite negative. Can you elaborate? What kind of effects?
jb775 6y ago
I wouldn't say entirely that they "didn't survive" considering we're talking about their genes existing within humans today. Also, long term survival of a species has a lot more to do with luck than you'd think. e.g If cooling temperatures killed off their primary food source and forced them to migrate into human controlled territory where they didn't have experience, they'd be at a disadvantage. But if they lived in a temperature warming era, we may be having the opposite conversation right now. "Guns, Germs, and Steel" is a good summary of this hypothesis.

monkeycantype 6y ago

I wonder whether we can infer this, because although the genes might result in nerves that more sensitively detect trauma and transmit that stimulus, we don't know that neanderthal experience of that pain was more intense, maybe their pain experience to a given stimulus was calibrated differently? Or perhaps, these nerves were slightly more sparsely placed in stouter bodies and had to detect injury across a greater region? It sounds like they had to endure some damage: I like the wikipedia quote: ' It has been remarked that Neanderthals showed a frequency of such injuries comparable to that of modern rodeo professionals, showing frequent contact with large, combative mammals. The pattern of fractures, along with the absence of throwing weapons, suggests that they may have hunted by leaping onto their prey and stabbing or even wrestling it to the ground.' https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0305440395900136?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/030544... via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_anatomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_anatomy

raducu 6y ago

Perhaps because of their hard life and reliance on their strength it was beneficial to have lower pain thresholds so they would avoid injury.