Reconstruction of ancestral brains: exploring the evolutionary process of encephalization in amniotes

There is huge divergence in the size and complexity of vertebrate brains. Notably, mammals and birds have bigger brains than other vertebrates, largely because these animal groups established larger dorsal telencephali. Fossil evidence suggests that this anatomical trait could have evolved independe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience research 2014-09, Vol.86, p.25-36
Main Authors: Nomura, Tadashi, Murakami, Yasunori, Gotoh, Hitoshi, Ono, Katsuhiko
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amniota
Animals
Biological Evolution
Brain - anatomy & histology
Brain - physiology
Humans
Neurogenesis
Vertebrates - anatomy & histology
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Summary:There is huge divergence in the size and complexity of vertebrate brains. Notably, mammals and birds have bigger brains than other vertebrates, largely because these animal groups established larger dorsal telencephali. Fossil evidence suggests that this anatomical trait could have evolved independently. However, recent comparative developmental analyses demonstrate surprising commonalities in neuronal subtypes among species, although this interpretation is highly controversial. In this review, we introduce intriguing evidence regarding brain evolution collected from recent studies in paleontology and developmental biology, and we discuss possible evolutionary changes in the cortical developmental programs that led to the encephalization and structural complexity of amniote brains. New research concepts and approaches will shed light on the origin and evolutionary processes of amniote brains, particularly the mammalian cerebral cortex.
ISSN:0168-0102
1872-8111
DOI:10.1016/j.neures.2014.03.004