Transcriptomic insights into human brain evolution: acceleration, neutrality, heterochrony

Somel, Mehmet; Rohlfs, Rori V.; Liu, Xiling

doi:10.1016/j.gde.2014.09.001

Cited by 26 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 118 publications

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“…The human brain is highly neotenous (Petanjek et al, 2011; Somel et al, 2009; Somel et al, 2014). Neoteny expresses the notion that during evolution, developmental processes are prolonged and potentiated beyond that seen relative to another species; in the brain neoteny likely largely relates to prolonged periods of synaptic plasticity, myelination, and other aspects of childhood brain development.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Loss of Brain Aerobic Glycolysis in Normal Human Aging

et al. 2017

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SUMMARY The normal aging human brain experiences global decreases in metabolism, but whether this affects the topography of brain metabolism is unknown. Here we describe PET-based measurements of brain glucose uptake, oxygen utilization and blood flow in cognitively normal adults from 20 to 82 years of age. Age-related decreases in brain glucose uptake exceed that of oxygen use, resulting in loss of brain aerobic glycolysis (AG). Whereas the topographies of total brain glucose uptake, oxygen utilization and blood flow remain largely stable with age, brain AG topography changes significantly. Brain regions with high AG in young adults show the greatest change, as do regions with prolonged developmental transcriptional features (i.e., neoteny). The normal aging human brain thus undergoes characteristic metabolic changes, largely driven by global loss and topographic changes in brain AG.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Loss of Brain Aerobic Glycolysis in Normal Human Aging

et al. 2017

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“…Although there is evidence for the effect of human culture on biological traits and gene frequencies (21), evidence for specific effects of human culture on learning and cognitive mechanisms is mostly circumstantial. This evidence includes signs of selection on genes implicated in brain growth, learning, and cognition (22)(23)(24) that may be attributed to human culture (21), and differences in gene expression in the brain between human and nonhuman primates (25,26) that may be interpreted similarly. There is also recent evidence relating structural changes in the human brain to Paleolithic tool-making abilities (27,28), but additional work is still needed to clarify the direction of causation between culture and cognition (we will return to discuss these findings toward the end of the paper).…”

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confidence: 99%

The evolution of cognitive mechanisms in response to cultural innovations

Lotem

Halpern

Edelman

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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When humans and other animals make cultural innovations, they also change their environment, thereby imposing new selective pressures that can modify their biological traits. For example, there is evidence that dairy farming by humans favored alleles for adult lactose tolerance. Similarly, the invention of cooking possibly affected the evolution of jaw and tooth morphology. However, when it comes to cognitive traits and learning mechanisms, it is much more difficult to determine whether and how their evolution was affected by culture or by their use in cultural transmission. Here we argue that, excluding very recent cultural innovations, the assumption that culture shaped the evolution of cognition is both more parsimonious and more productive than assuming the opposite. In considering how culture shapes cognition, we suggest that a process-level model of cognitive evolution is necessary and offer such a model. The model employs relatively simple coevolving mechanisms of learning and data acquisition that jointly construct a complex network of a type previously shown to be capable of supporting a range of cognitive abilities. The evolution of cognition, and thus the effect of culture on cognitive evolution, is captured through small modifications of these coevolving learning and data-acquisition mechanisms, whose coordinated action is critical for building an effective network. We use the model to show how these mechanisms are likely to evolve in response to cultural phenomena, such as language and tool-making, which are associated with major changes in data patterns and with new computational and statistical challenges.tool-making | language evolution | niche construction | cognitive evolution | social learning A n open question in the study of culture and cognitive evolution is whether (and to what extent) cognitive mechanisms, especially those viewed as advanced or sophisticated, evolved in response to social-learning challenges or are merely the product of domain-general mechanisms (1-3). According to one view-still widely held in cognitive science and evolutionary psychology-cognitive adaptations take the form of specialized brain modules (or neuronal mechanisms) that evolved for specific, often social purposes, such as "imitation" (4, 5), "mind reading" (6, 7), "cheating detection" (8), or most famously, language acquisition (9, 10). These ideas have been criticized on theoretical and empirical grounds (11,12), and the debate around them demonstrates our limited understanding of the evolution of cognition, its relationship to the evolution of social behavior and, in some organisms, culture.The question of whether culture and social behavior shape the evolution of the brain is, in our view, best considered using the evolutionary framework of niche construction (13-16): that is, culture and social behavior change the ecological niche to which cognitive traits must adapt in the same manner that nest-building by birds changes the ecological niche in which their nestlings evolve. For example, animals' ability t...

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“…Previous brain metabolomic studies have been performed on tissues collected from humans, chimpanzees, rhesus macaques 8 9 , rats 10 11 , and mice 9 12 . These studies have identified energy and neurotransmission metabolites and changes associated with neurological diseases and mammalian evolution 8 10 13 . However, the number of metabolites identified to date has been relatively small, and the majority of the detected metabolites were not quantitated, due to technical limitations 8 9 .…”

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confidence: 99%

The Brain Metabolome of Male Rats across the Lifespan

Zheng

Chen

Zhao

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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Comprehensive and accurate characterization of brain metabolome is fundamental to brain science, but has been hindered by technical limitations. We profiled the brain metabolome in male Wistar rats at different ages (day 1 to week 111) using high-sensitivity and high-resolution mass spectrometry. Totally 380 metabolites were identified and 232 of them were quantitated. Compared with anatomical regions, age had a greater effect on variations in the brain metabolome. Lipids, fatty acids and amino acids accounted for the largest proportions of the brain metabolome, and their concentrations varied across the lifespan. The levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids were higher in infancy (week 1 to week 3) compared with later ages, and the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids increased in the aged brain (week 56 to week 111). Importantly, a panel of 20 bile acids were quantitatively measured, most of which have not previously been documented in the brain metabolome. This study extends the breadth of the mammalian brain metabolome as well as our knowledge of functional brain development, both of which are critically important to move the brain science forward.

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Transcriptomic insights into human brain evolution: acceleration, neutrality, heterochrony

Cited by 26 publications

References 118 publications

Loss of Brain Aerobic Glycolysis in Normal Human Aging

Loss of Brain Aerobic Glycolysis in Normal Human Aging

The evolution of cognitive mechanisms in response to cultural innovations

The Brain Metabolome of Male Rats across the Lifespan

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