Jessica Wynn

It's called TUB4B, T-U-B-B-4-B, and is present in every human, but in left-handed people, it's mutated.

T-U-B-B-4-B sounds like a Star Wars droid.

Yeah, it is the droid they were looking for, right?

So TUB4B is short for Tubulin Beta 4B Class 4B.

Okay.

It's a gene connected to microtubules.

tiny structures in your cells that act like scaffolding.

So these microtubules shape how neurons grow and connect and keep our cells structured, organized, and help them divide and move.

In a roundabout way, yeah, sort of.

These microtubules are crucial and associated with a lot of biological functions.

The researchers have found that some mutations of the TUB4B gene mess with microtubules and lead to hearing loss.

vision problems, even infertility.

So microtubules influence the cilia, those little hair-like organelles that move fluid around developing tissue.

And when the flow of that fluid is uneven, it creates the left-right split in the brain.

It's definitely a part of it.

Yeah.

So the job of these microscopic little guys is to determine how the brain organizes itself.

They're like our cells own Martha Stewart.

Yeah, yeah, they're in an altered state for sure.

These rare TUB4B variants don't explain everything, though.