Human brain is two separate organs, research finds
Our brain evolved from two primitive nervous systems that merged: Study
A Hacker News discussion challenges the idea that the human brain is a single organ. One commenter compares the hindbrain to a system management co-processor that handles low-level hardware, while the forebrain acts as the main processor running everything from OS to applications and can even interfere with the co-processor. The observation about progenitor cells is likened to a bill of materials showing different suppliers, though the commenter cautions that evolutionary history is guesswork and that assuming the hindbrain is an older legacy system is easy but not necessarily correct.
It's a crude analogy, but I would say the hindbrain is more like the system management co-processor or controller that tends to low-level hardware features.
- carefree-bob
There was a book in the 1970s called "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes, where he argued that ancient civilizations -- and he used examples from Homer -- lacked the current modern sense of self-consciousness. If you look at their behavior, they interact with some external divine voice that drives their actions, whereas if you read modern literature you see people being driven by an inner voice which they associate with themselves.
This shift from the "bicameral mentality" of the external voice to the modern mentality of the inner voice was hypothesized by Jaynes to be rooted in some biological changes in the brain. At the time there was split brain research that showed these two parts of the brain function independently almost as two different minds in the same skull. See this 2007 survey: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6323702_The_bicamer...
- rolph
this is not the claim made by the researchers generating this paper.
this is thier claim :
“We’ve shown for the first time that the front of the brain arises from a totally different progenitor cell than the back of the brain,” said Kyle Loh, PhD, associate professor of developmental biology. “Our discovery means that we can now grow neurons from the back of the brain, the hindbrain, in a petri dish and study their functions.”
in translation, the two regions of the brain develop from different expressive states of the progenitor populations. the problem was difficulty culturing cerebellar neurons, due to a unrecognized disparity in genetic expressivity. the neurons were being manipulated as if they were running the same config.sys, and that was not the case. this work elucidates that fact and recognizes it as essential, to invitro culture of "hindbrain" neurons.
The findings were published in Nature Neuroscience Sept. 18. Loh is the senior author. Graduate students Carolyn Dundes and Rayyan Jokhai are co-first authors of the research.
- ____tom____
Seems to be based on the Stanford article: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2026/09/two-separate-...
- Chance-Device
Interesting. Might explain why the cerebellum and cortex work so differently? I wonder what the two ancient nervous systems looked like at the point where they merged.
- networkOne
A little misleading when they mention 'our' brains, yet the study outlines that even acorn worms have the same structure.