Why did brain channels get so powerful? A 40-year-old evolution puzzle gets an answer

Since the early 1980s, scientists have wondered why the 'BK' channels in our brain cells conduct electricity 10 to 20 times more powerfully than other channels — an extravagance no one could explain. Using computer simulations and evolutionary modelling, researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan mapped these channels across species and found conductance climbs as animals get closer to mammals. Their models, published in Communications Biology, suggest the payoff is timing: powerful channels need less calcium to open, letting neurons fire with sub-millisecond precision — the split-second accuracy complex movement, memory and senses demand. 'No one really knew why we had developed these extraordinarily high-conductance channels. Our work provides a possible answer,' says Erik De Schutter, who led the modelling.