Brain evolution/Bibliography

From Citizendium
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article is developing and not approved.
Main Article
Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
Citable Version  [?]
 
A list of key readings about Brain evolution.
Please sort and annotate in a user-friendly manner. For formatting, consider using automated reference wikification.

Reviews


Research articles

Synchrotron-based neuroimaging of what may be the oldest known fossil brain.
Builds on the expensive tissue hypothesis proposed by Aiello & Wheeler (1995) and provides evidence that the maximum rate of population increase, as defined by Cole (1954), is correlated negatively with brain size in mammals and birds, as long as parental care is not provided (and thus the energetic costs of feeding borne) by the mothers alone. Predicts that such allomaternal care increases the "maximum viable brain size" in a given family and that brain size evolution is strongly coupled to mass extinction events.
A brief and balanced overview over the genetic mechanisms currently deemed relevant for the evolution of the human brain, along with pointers to some related methodological issues.
  • Emes, R.D.; Pocklington, A.J.; Anderson, C.N.G.; Bayes, A.; Collins, M.O.; Vickers, C.A.; Croning, M.D.R.; Malik, B.R.; Choudhary, J.S.; Armstrong, J.D.; Others, (2008). "Evolutionary expansion and anatomical specialization of synapse proteome complexity". Nature Neuroscience (6): pages to be defined. DOI:10.1038/nn.2135. Research Blogging.
Provides a literature review based on "856 reports of interspecific kleptoparasitism by 197 species from 33 avian families", concluding that this behaviour correlates with brain size (and hence cognition), habitat and diet but not with body size or aggression.
  1. redirect CZ:Ref:DOI:10.1097/MOP.0b013e328010542d
Quote: "Areas with more advanced functions – integrating information from the senses, reasoning and other ‘executive’ functions (e.g. prefrontal cortex) – matured last, in late adolescence. This sequence also provided evidence that phylogenetically older cortical areas mature earlier than the more recently evolved higher-order association cortices, which integrate information from earlier maturing cortex."
Shows a correlation between brain size and monogamy in primates.
Provides comparative histological data on the glia-neuron ratios in prefrontal area 9L of the neocortex in 18 anthropoid primate species and on the allometric scaling of this ratio with brain size, concluding that the value in humans is well within the range allometrically expected for an anthropoid primate with our brain size.
  • Jarvis, E.D.; Güntürkün, O.; Bruce, L.; Csillag, A.; Karten, H.; Kuenzel, W.; Medina, L.; Paxinos, G.; Perkel, D.J.; Shimizu, T.; Others, (2005). "Avian brains and a new understanding of vertebrate brain evolution". Nature Reviews Neuroscience 6: 151-159. DOI:10.1038/nrn1606. Research Blogging.

"...among quantitative brain parameters examined to date, only the cerebrotype provides a measure of architecture that correlates with date of divergence of advanced primates."

In comparison to rodents, "...substantially more total rounds of cell division elapsed during the prolonged neurogenetic period of the monkey cortex, providing a basis for increased cell production."

Proposed that the energetic costs of the resting metabolism of different organs within the body have to be balanced. Specifically, such a trade-off is hypothesized to have governed the increasing brain size during primate and human evolution, in concert with a decrease in the amount of digestive tissue. For a critique, see Hladik et al. (1999).