{"id":3144,"date":"2018-05-25T11:55:19","date_gmt":"2018-05-25T15:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/?p=3144"},"modified":"2018-05-25T11:55:19","modified_gmt":"2018-05-25T15:55:19","slug":"nature-paper-sheds-light-on-human-brain-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/2018\/05\/25\/nature-paper-sheds-light-on-human-brain-evolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Nature Paper Sheds Light on Human Brain Evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3145\" src=\"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/brain.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"926\" height=\"693\" \/>Why did the human brain evolved to its unusually large size? Former NIMBioS GRA Mauricio Gonz\u00e1lez-Forero has some answers in a new <a href=\"https:\/\/rdcu.be\/O1Vc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nature publication<\/a> that develops a mechanistic model showing brain expansion was likely driven by ecological, not social, processes.<\/p>\n<p>Roughly six size times larger than expected for its body size, the human brain consumes 20 percent of the body&#8217;s energy yet accounts for only 4 percent of its mass.\u00a0The dominant hypothesis as to why the human brain has evolved this way suggests that challenging social interactions, such as cooperation and competition, were the driving force.<\/p>\n<p>In their model, Gonz\u00e1lez-Forero and co-author Andy Gardner\u00a0found evidence instead that environmental challenges, such as finding food, are key in driving brain-size evolution.<\/p>\n<p>A Marie Curie Fellow of Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews,\u00a0Gonz\u00e1lez-Forero was a NIMBioS GRA from 2010 to 2012. He earned a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology in 2013, conducting research in the lab of Sergey Gavrilets focused on mathematical modeling of the evolution of sociality.<\/p>\n<p>Gonz\u00e1lez-Forero wrote a detailed article for The Conservation about the Nature paper, which can be found\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-do-humans-have-such-large-brains-our-study-suggests-ecology-was-the-driving-force-96873\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>. The paper has already received <a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/stories\/CAAqSQgKIkNDQklTTERvSmMzUnZjbmt0TXpZd1NoOGFIV1F0WVcxeWJXOXZTbXAyZUZkU1RURmpWSGhJYTBzeVNXaHdSVGxOS0FBUAE?q=human+brain+size&amp;lr=English&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiR6vyinKHbAhUKnlkKHUWuDrQQqgIILTAB&amp;hl=en-US&amp;gl=US&amp;ceid=US:en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">widespread attention<\/a> in mainstream media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why did the human brain evolved to its unusually large size? Former NIMBioS GRA Mauricio Gonz\u00e1lez-Forero has some answers in a new Nature publication that develops a mechanistic model showing brain expansion was likely driven by ecological, not social, processes. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/2018\/05\/25\/nature-paper-sheds-light-on-human-brain-evolution\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[71,32,33,54],"tags":[59,109,34,117],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3146,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144\/revisions\/3146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nimbios.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}