NS evolution

Question 1

morphological difference between skull of homo sapien vs non homo sapien

Answer 1

homo sapiens have larger room for brain

Question 2

brain weight

Answer 2

insufficient predictor of ‘smartness’
elephants aren’t smarter than us

Question 3

brain weight as % of BW

Answer 3

still not good enough either
mouses are not smartest animals

Question 4

encephalisation factor

Answer 4

brain weight / BW^0.69
good predictor (puts humans at top)

Question 5

increase in relevant brain size

Answer 5

birds, mammals and cartilaginous fish
FISH: big brain because a lot of olfaction

Question 6

how have brains changed?

Answer 6

increase in relative brain size and increase in relative regional sizes

Question 7

are bigger brains more sophisticated?

Answer 7

not necessarily
whale brains also have 6 layers with very complex folding, however are much simpler (less neuron presence)

Question 8

are small brains more sophisticated?

Answer 8

Maybe, small brains might be more complex
Goldfish brain has 15 layers

Question 9

primates show different levels of gyrification

Answer 9

Primate brains show different levels of gyrification
Big brains are really folded
Cerebral cortex thickness is the same

Question 10

what hasn’t changed over time / across animals

Answer 10

cortical thickness

Question 11

gyrification - why?

Answer 11

folding increases surface area
(allows more cortex in smaller volume)

Question 12

packing through layers

Answer 12

gets suboptimal as layers increase

Question 13

primates?

Answer 13

bigger brains (in relation to body size), more neocortex, more distinct architectures

Question 14

afarensis vs homo erectus

Answer 14

getting bigger (bones and skull)

Question 15

why did brain increase?

Answer 15

body grows bigger, therefore requires a bigger brain for that body

Question 16

evolution of grassland

Answer 16

driver of evolutionary change towards intelligence
(e.g. needing to free forelimbs to make tools)
BUT brain size increased AFTER bipedalism (wasnt a trigger for cerebral expansion)

Question 17

what was driver for cerebral expansion?

Answer 17

rapidly changing environment required ability to adapt to survive -> bigger brain more able to adapt

Question 18

brain size at birth

Answer 18

need to fit through pelvis
either have a small brain or be birthed with an undeveloped brain

Question 19

organisation of pfc in mammals

Answer 19

macaque same as us but lab rat has no organisation of PFC

Question 20

organisation of language areas in macaque vs human

Answer 20

upstream from motor area in both

Question 21

what gene expression characteristics are same / diff between us and chimps

Answer 21

same: liver, blood
different: brain

Question 22

costs of big brain

Answer 22

require long gestation, big head = difficult birth, more genes (and more mutations), large energy expenditure / heat production

Question 23

high culture relation to brain size

Answer 23

increase in high culture (e.g. writing, cities, art) kind of corrrelate with bigger brain size NOT bipedalism though

Question 24

lunate sulcus

Answer 24

divides visual from other neocortex
lunate sulcus positions (in Australopithecus) suggestive of bigger proportion of non-visual cortex - which includes association cortex

Question 25

archaic hominins

Answer 25

everything that is not a homo sapien

Question 26

floresiensis

Answer 26

Small cranial capacity
Very small too
They must have survived
they thought they were diseased homo sapiens
We are bigger with bigger brain
on both trajectories therefore kinda mysterious

Question 27

primary motor cortex & language

Answer 27

move muscles to make sound

Question 28

primary somatosensory cortex & language

Answer 28

braille

Question 29

wernicke’s area

Answer 29

make sense of speeech

Question 30

broca’s area

Answer 30

what words do you want to make

Question 31

primary visual cortex & language

Answer 31

writing

Question 32

left hemisphere vs right hemisphere

Answer 32

left has thicker temporal lobe (more gyrus)

Question 33

left hemisphere language functions

Answer 33

lexical and syntactic language
writing
speech

Question 34

right hemisphere language functions

Answer 34

emotional colouring of language
rudimentary speech (yes no okay)

Question 35

what stream is language?

Answer 35

ventral ‘what’ stream

Question 36

broca’s aphasia

Answer 36

can understand language but cant produce

Question 37

wernicke’s aphasia

Answer 37

fluent, grammatical nonsense

Question 38

alexia (word blindness)

Answer 38

ability to write a passage but inability to read the passage back (can’t recognise individual letters as a letter, can’t associate letter with sound)

Question 39

how localised is language?

Answer 39

speech is across the entire brain

Question 40

talking is a big deal for us

Answer 40

we stop breathing just to talk

Question 41

brain activation when teaching monkeys language

Answer 41

activation of their broca’s and wernicke’s area

Question 42

FOXP2

Answer 42

expressed in numerous locations in the brain
could have crucial role in development of speech BUT WE DONT KNOW
mutations -> speech disorders