21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-01-18 09:08:11

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ARE WE ANY DIFFERENT? “What makes us human? Is our brain, the only one known to study other brains, special in any way? According to a recent popular account of what makes us unique, “we have brains that are bigger than expected for an ape, we have a neocortex that is three times bigger than predicted for our body size, we have some areas of the neocortex and the cerebellum that are larger than expected, we have more white matter” – and the list goes on.” https://lnkd.in/d2aUKat View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-01-19 06:44:07

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THE SCALING RULES. “Through the estimation of absolute numbers of neuronal and non-neuronal cells in the brains of different mammalian species and their comparison within individual orders, we have been able to determine the scaling rules that apply to the brains of species spanning a wide range of body and brain masses in rodents, primates, and more recently in insectivores.” https://lnkd.in/d2aUKat View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-01-18 09:04:50

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FRAGMENT FROM NATURE considers stubborn questions of the ways we measure brain size, as human have often been singled out as somehow special as a result of their unique brains, mostly based on size compared to other primates. This persistent thread of literature defied the fact that even elephants, dolphins and whales have bigger brains than man, and even that human brain size has decreased somewhat over time. But on it went, and still persists. Enjoy some Tomfoolery. View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments
linkedin post 2020-01-17 04:02:27

linkedin post 2020-01-17 04:02:27

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TOKYO RAILWAY NETWORK. "Inside laboratories slime molds have effectively re-created Tokyo's railway network in miniature as well as the highways of Canada, the U.K. and Spain. When researchers placed oat flakes or other bits of food in the same positions as big cities and urban areas, slime molds first engulfed the entirety of the edible maps. Within a matter of days, however, the protists thinned themselves away, leaving behind interconnected branches of slime that linked the pieces of food in almost exactly the same way that man-made roads and rail lines connect major hubs in Tokyo, Europe and Canada.” http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brainless-slime-molds/ View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-01-19 06:39:45

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THE DATA. “Now that numbers of neurons are available across rodents, primates and insectivores, we find that the cerebral cortex, despite varying in relative size from 42% (in the mouse) to 82% of brain mass (in the human), contains between 13 and 28% of all brain neurons in 15 of 18 species studied, ranging between 13% (in moles) and 41% (in the squirrel monkey.” https://lnkd.in/d2aUKat View in LinkedIn
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21Sep 2022 by Nigel Fleming No Comments

linkedin post 2020-01-19 06:36:01

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FRESH EYES. “Such discrepancy would support the popular notion that brain evolution equates with development of the cerebral cortex, which comes to predominate over the other brain structures. However, analysis of absolute, rather than relative, cerebral cortical and cerebellar volumes in the same dataset leads to the opposite conclusion: the surface areas of these structures, would be evidence that the cerebral cortex and cerebellum are functionally related and have been evolving coordinately.” https://lnkd.in/d2aUKat View in LinkedIn
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