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CORTEX AND SIZE. “The increase in relative size of the cerebral cortex with increasing brain size simultaneously with no systematic change in the relative size of the cerebellum has been used as evidence that these structures are functionally independent and have been evolving separately.” https://lnkd.in/d2aUKat View in LinkedIn

THE PRIZE. “An often cited argument in favor of the uniqueness of the human brain is its relatively large cerebral cortex, which accounts for 82% of brain mass.” https://lnkd.in/d2aUKat View in LinkedIn

THE WEE PROBLEM. “The assumption that brain size relates to number of neurons in the brain in a similar fashion across orders. This assumption, which was justifiable by the lack of direct estimates of the neuronal composition of the brain of different species, is so widespread that it implicitly or explicitly underlies most comparative studies to date.” https://lnkd.in/d2aUKat View in LinkedIn

SMALL SNAG. “Different mammalian orders have traditionally been pooled together in studies of brain allometry, as if their brains were built according to the same scaling rules.” https://lnkd.in/d2aUKat View in LinkedIn

MINE IS BIGGER. “Monkeys, for instance, possess brains that are much smaller than those of ungulates, but the higher cognitive and behavioral flexibility of monkeys over ungulates is anecdotally evident to any observer who compares the ingenious and complex abilities of macaques to those of cows or horses, even though the latter have 4–5× larger brains than macaques.” https://lnkd.in/d2aUKat View in LinkedIn

PROXIES FOR SMARTS. “Brain properties assumed to be relevant for intelligence are the (absolute or relative) size of the brain, cortex, prefrontal cortex and degree of encephalization.” https://lnkd.in/drQAATA View in LinkedIn

MORE WET GOO. “The observation that absolute brain size increased over the past 2 million years is one of the few uncontested facts of hominid evolution.” https://lnkd.in/dvK-CtM View in LinkedIn

IMPLICATIONS. “In view of the similar non-neuronal cell densities across species, hypermetric scaling of brain structure mass as a function of its number of neurons implies a concurrent increase in the average neuronal size (which, in the method's definition, includes not only the cell soma but also the entire dendritic and axonal arborizations as well as synapses.” https://lnkd.in/d2aUKat View in LinkedIn

SELF-RESPONSIVE. "The Artist Who’s Making Cybernetic Slime Mold Sing. Slime mold responds to external stimuli, so, upon hearing and seeing its own electrical signal, it reacts—creating a new and different electrical pattern. And so the process continues and the sound evolves into a cybernetic slime mold composition." http://singularityhub.com/2015/07/29/the-artist-whos-making-cybernetic-slime-mold-sing/ View in LinkedIn

SCALING DETAILS. “Across insectivore species, on the other hand, the cerebellum increases linearly in size as a function of its number of neurons (as in primates), while the cerebral cortex increases in size hypermetrically as it gains neurons (as in rodents).” https://lnkd.in/d2aUKat View in LinkedIn