Brain size/Bibliography

Please sort and annotate in a user-friendly manner. For formatting, consider using automated reference wikification.

• Isler, K. & C.P. Van Schaik (2009), "Why are there so few smart mammals (but so many smart birds)?", Biology Letters: in press, DOI:10.1098/rsbl.2008.0469 ^[e]

Builds on the expensive tissue hypothesis proposed by Aiello & Wheeler (1995) and provides evidence that the maximum rate of population increase, as defined by Cole (1954), is correlated negatively with brain size in mammals and birds, as long as parental care is not provided (and thus the energetic costs of feeding borne) by the mothers alone. Predicts that such allomaternal care increases the "maximum viable brain size" in a given family and that brain size evolution is strongly coupled to mass extinction events.

• Sol, D. & T.D. Price (2008), "Brain Size and the Diversification of Body Size in Birds", Am Nat 172: 170-177, DOI:10.1086/589461 ^[e]

Based on data about brain size and body size in 120 families of birds, this study shows by means of path analysis that about 12% of within-family body size disparity can be explained by the average residual brain size within that family. Based on observations that brain size correlates with a number of cognitive measures, it is then concluded that behaviour might contribute to evolutionary diversification.

• Grimaldi, A.M.; C. Agnisola & G. Fiorito (2007), "Using ultrasound to estimate brain size in the cephalopod Octopus vulgaris Cuvier in vivo", Brain Research 1183: 66–73, DOI:10.1016/j.brainres.2007.09.032 ^[e]
• Healy, S.D. & C. Rowe (2007), "A critique of comparative studies of brain size", Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 274 (1609): 453-464, DOI:10.1098/rspb.2006.3748 ^[e]
• Morand-Ferron, J.; D. Sol & L. Lefebvre (2007), "Food stealing in birds: brain or brawn?", Animal Behaviour 74 (6): 1725–1734, DOI:10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.04.031 ^[e]

Provides a literature review based on "856 reports of interspecific kleptoparasitism by 197 species from 33 avian families", concluding that this behaviour correlates with brain size (and hence cognition), habitat and diet but not with body size or aggression.

• Marino, L. (2006), "Absolute brain size: Did we throw the baby out with the bathwater?", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 (37): 13563-13564, DOI:10.1073/pnas.0606337103 ^[e]
• Sherwood, C.C.; C.D. Stimpson & M.A. Raghanti et al. (2006), "Evolution of increased glia-neuron ratios in the human frontal cortex", Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103 (37): 13606–13611, DOI:10.1073/pnas.0605843103 ^[e]

Provides comparative histological data on the glia-neuron ratios in prefrontal area 9L of the neocortex in 18 anthropoid primate species and on the allometric scaling of this ratio with brain size, concluding that the value in humans is well within the range allometrically expected for an anthropoid primate with our brain size.

• Pitnick, S.; K.E. Jones & G.S. Wilkinson (2006), "Mating system and brain size in bats", Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273 (1587): 719–724, DOI:10.1098/rspb.2005.3367 ^[e]
• Schillaci, Michael A. (2006), "Sexual Selection and the Evolution of Brain Size in Primates", PLoS ONE 1: e62, DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0000062 ^[e]

Shows a correlation between brain size and monogamy in primates.

• Jaaro, H. & M. Fainzilber (2006), "Building Complex Brains-Missing Pieces in an Evolutionary Puzzle", Brain Behav Evol 68 (3): 191–195, DOI:10.1159/000094088 ^[e]
• Bond, J. & C.G. Woods (2006), "Cytoskeletal genes regulating brain size", Current Opinion in Cell Biology 18 (1): 95–101, DOI:10.1016/j.ceb.2005.11.004 ^[e]
• Depaepe, Vanessa; Nathalie Suarez-Gonzalez & Audrey Dufour et al. (2005), "Ephrin signalling controls brain size by regulating apoptosis of neural progenitors", Nature 435 (7046): 1244–1250, DOI:10.1038/nature03651 ^[e]
• Lefebvre, L.; S.M. Reader & D. Sol (2004), "Brains, Innovations and Evolution in Birds and Primates", Brain, Behav Evol 63 (4): 233–246, DOI:10.1159/000076784 ^[e]
• Feng, Y. & C.A. Walsh (2004), "Mitotic Spindle Regulation by Nde1 Controls Cerebral Cortical Size", Neuron 44 (2): 279–293, DOI:10.1016/j.neuron.2004.09.023 ^[e]
• Dietschy, John M. & Stephen D. Turley (2004), "Cholesterol metabolism in the central nervous system during early development and in the mature animal", Journal of Lipid Research 45 (8): 1375–1397, DOI:10.1194/jlr.R400004-JLR200 ^[e]
• Harrison, K.H.; P.R. Hof & S.S.H. Wang (2002), "Scaling laws in the mammalian neocortex: Does form provide clues to function?", Journal of Neurocytology 31 (3): 289–298, DOI:10.1023/A:1024178127195 ^[e]
• Clark, D.A.; P.P. Mitra & S.S. Wang (2001), "Scalable architecture in mammalian brains", Nature 411 (6834): 189–93, DOI:10.1038/35075564 ^[e]
• Rilling, J.K. & T.R. Insel (1999), "The primate neocortex in comparative perspective using magnetic resonance imaging", Journal of Human Evolution 37 (2): 191–223, DOI:10.1006/jhev.1999.0313 ^[e]
• Hladik, C.M.; D.J. Chivers & P. Pasquet (1999), "On Diet and Gut Size in Non-human Primates and Humans: is There a Relationship to Brain Size?", Curr Anthropol 40 (5): 695–697, DOI:10.1086/300099 ^[e]
• Henneberg, M. (1998), "Evolution of the Human Brain: is Bigger Better?", Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology 25 (9): 745–749, DOI:10.1111/j.1440-1681.1998.tb02289.x ^[e]
• Pakkenberg, B. & H.J.G. Gundersen (1997), "Neocortical Neuron Number in Humans: Effect of Sex and Age", The Journal of Comparative Neurology 384: 312–320
• Aiello, L.C. & P. Wheeler (1995), "The Expensive-Tissue Hypothesis: the Brain and the Digestive System in Human and Primate Evolution", Current Anthropology 36 (2): 199-221, DOI:10.1086/204350 ^[e]

Proposed that the energetic costs of the resting metabolism of different organs within the body have to be balanced. Specifically, such a trade-off is hypothesized to have governed the increasing brain size during primate and human evolution, in concert with a decrease in the amount of digestive tissue. For a critique, see Hladik et al. (1999).

• Ridley, Mark (1995), "Pelvic sexual dimorphism and relative neonatal brain size really are related", American Journal of Physical Anthropology 97: 197-200, DOI:10.1002/ajpa.1330970209 ^[e]
• Hofman, M.A. (1993), "Encephalization and the evolution of longevity in mammals", J. Evol. Biol. 6 (2): 209–227, DOI:10.1046/j.1420-9101.1993.6020209.x ^[e]
• von Bonin, G. (1934), "On the size of man's brain as indicated by skull capacity", The Journal of Comparative Neurology 59 (1): 1–28, DOI:10.1002/cne.900590102 ^[e]