Review: “Principles of Brain Evolution” (BSP 47)

by Ginger Campbell, MD on October 4, 2008

Episode 47 of the Brain Science Podcast is a discussion of Principles of Brain Evolution by Georg F. Striedter. My goal is to highlight the main ideas of this complicated, and often controversial subject. Understanding the principles of brain evolution is an important element in our multidisciplinary attempt to understand how our brains make us who we are.

Show Notes and Links:

Important terms:

homologues: characteristics with shared ancestry
neurocladistics: a rigorous method for classifying neural structures based on their ancestry
small-world network: a mathematical graph where most nodes connect to nearby nodes but almost any two can be connect in relatively small number of steps (the famous six-degrees of separation)
Boskop man: an extinct hominid that is thought to have had a larger brain than modern humans

People and Scientists Discussed:

Carl Sagan: author of The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
Richard Owen: contemporary of Darwin who introduced the term homologue
Ludwig Edinger: the founder of modern neuroanatomy, he thought that the forebrain of vertebrates had evolved by the addition of novel structures
Paul D. Maclean: the Triune Brain Theory
Willi Hennig: introduced cladistics in 1950
Glen Northcutt: application of cladistics to neural connections (neurocladistics)
Johnston, J. B. 1923. “Further Contributions of the sudy of the evolution of the forebrain.” Journal of Comparative Neurology 36: 143-192. He challenged the idea that brains evolve by the successive adition of novel parts.
Michael Arbib: Mirror Neuron Hypothesis of Language Evolution (Interviewed in Episode 39)