Evolution of the Size and Functional Areas of the Human Brain

@article{Schoenemann2006EvolutionOT,
  title={Evolution of the Size and Functional Areas of the Human Brain},
  author={P. Thomas Schoenemann},
  journal={Annual Review of Anthropology},
  year={2006},
  volume={35},
  pages={379-406}
}
  • P. Schoenemann
  • Published 19 September 2006
  • Psychology, Biology
  • Annual Review of Anthropology
The human brain is one of the most intricate, complicated, and impressive organs ever to have evolved. Understanding its evolution requires integrating knowledge from a variety of disciplines in the natural and social sciences. Four areas of research are particularly important to this endeavor. First, we need to understand basic principles of brain evolution that appear to operate across broad classes of organisms. Second, we need to understand the ways in which human brains differ from the… 
View via Publisher
indiana.edu
231 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
20
Background Citations
117
Methods Citations
6
Results Citations
6

231 Citations

The Human Brain
On the Matter of Mind: Neural Complexity and Functional Dynamics of the Human Brain
TLDR
It will be argued that in primates the complexity of the neural circuitry of the cerebral cortex is the neural correlate of higher cognitive functions, including mind-like properties and consciousness.
Evolution of the human brain: when bigger is better
  • M. Hofman
  • Biology, Psychology
    Front. Neuroanat.
  • 2014
TLDR
The object of this review is to present current perspectives on primate brain evolution, especially in humans, and to examine some hypothetical organizing principles that underlie the brain's complex organization.
Evolution of the Human Brain: Design Without a Designer
Evolution of brain and language.
Brain Plasticity and Human Evolution
Human behavior is shaped by social learning to an extent that is unrivaled in the natural world. What neurobiological changes have occurred in human evolutionary history that have enabled this…
Human brain evolution writ large and small.
A Complex-Adaptive-Systems Approach to the Evolution of Language and the Brain
TLDR
It will be argued that this has in turn led to the evolution of language structure via cultural mechanisms (many of which remain opaque and hidden from the authors' conscious awareness) and this has itself contributed to a richer conceptual world.
Placental morphology and the cellular brain in mammalianevolution
TLDR
The degree to which disparate brain regions evolve in concert is shown to be generally conserved in Eutheria, although a derived ability to evolve regions independently is observed along the primate lineage.
The Human Brain Evolving: A Personal Retrospective
TLDR
Exactly how this melange of organs evolved will require many more paleontological discoveries with relatively intact crania, an unraveling of the genetic bases for both brain structures and their relationship to behaviors, and a far more complete picture of how the brain varies between male and female and among different populations throughout the world.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 144 REFERENCES
Developmental structure in brain evolution
TLDR
Comparison of multiple regressions on allometric data for 131 mammalian species, however, suggests that for 9 of 11 brain structures taxonomic and body size factors are less important than covariance of these major structures with each other.
Genetic links between brain development and brain evolution
TLDR
It is proposed that genes that regulate brain size during development, such as microcephaly genes, are chief contributors in driving the evolutionary enlargement of the human brain.
Humans and great apes share a large frontal cortex
TLDR
It is suggested that the special cognitive abilities attributed to a frontal advantage may be due to differences in individual cortical areas and to a richer interconnectivity, none of which required an increase in the overall relative size of the frontal lobe during hominid evolution.
Evolution of Human Intelligence: The Roles of Brain Size and Mental Construction
  • K. Gibson
  • Psychology, Biology
    Brain, Behavior and Evolution
  • 2002
TLDR
A continuity model is presented that suggests that expanded human mental capacities primarily reflect the increased information processing capacities of the enlarged human brain including the enlarged neocortex, cerebellum, and basal ganglia.
Animal intelligence as encephalization.
  • H. J. Jerison
  • Psychology, Biology
    Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
  • 1985
There is no consensus on the nature of animal intelligence despite a century of research, though recent work on cognitive capacities of dolphins and great apes seems to be on one right track. The…
The organization of neocortex in mammals: are species differences really so different?
Morphology and histology of chimpanzee primary visual striate cortex indicate that brain reorganization predated brain expansion in early hominid evolution.
TLDR
While the human brain has experienced numerous expansion and reorganization events throughout evolution, the data from these two chimpanzees offer significant support for the hypothesis that the neurogenetic basis for brain reorganization was present in the authors' early fossil ancestors (i.e., the australopithecines) prior to brain enlargement.
Size and shape of the cerebral cortex in mammals. I. The cortical surface.
  • M. Hofman
  • Biology
    Brain, behavior and evolution
  • 1985
TLDR
It appears that the use of a single allometric relation in studying the effect of size increase on the geometry of the brain - irrespective of convolutedness or ecological strategy - is unjustified and obscured the differences in the structural organization of mammalian brains.
The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain
This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers…
The Social Brain: Mind, Language, and Society in Evolutionary Perspective
TLDR
The extent to which the cognitive demands of bonding large intensely social groups involve aspects of social cognition, such as theory of mind, is explored and is related to the evolution of social group size, language, and culture within the hominid lineage.
...
...