New Research in Evolutionary Development of the Brain
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New research collaboration has produced research challenging previously held views of human brain evolution.
New research collaboration between the Brain Function Research Group, the Evolutionary Studies Institute and the Cardiovascular Physiology team in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Adelaide, has produced research challenging previously held views of human brain evolution.
Dr Edward Snelling, a Claude Leon Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Physiology co- authored the paper entitled “Fossil skulls reveal that blood flow rate to the brain increased faster than brain volume during human evolution” published in the Royal Society Open Science yesturday. The team calculated how blood flowing to the brain of human ancestors changed over and found that while brain size has increased about 350% over human evolution, blood flow to the brain increased an amazing 600%.
“To allow our brain to be so intelligent, it must be constantly fed oxygen and nutrients from the blood. The more metabolically active the brain is, the more blood it requires, so the supply arteries are larger. The holes in fossil skulls are accurate gauges of arterial size. We believe this is possibly related to the brain’s need to satisfy increasingly energetic connections between nerve cells that allowed the evolution of complex thinking and learning,” says Prof. Seymour.