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Convergent evolution of complex brains and high intelligence.

Gerhard Roth1

  • 1Brain Research Institute, University of Bremen, 28334 Bremen, Germany gerhard.roth@uni-bremen.de.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences
|November 11, 2015
PubMed
Summary

Complex brains and high intelligence have evolved independently across diverse animal groups, including insects, cephalopods, birds, and mammals. These intelligent species share specialized brain regions for processing information and exhibit varied evolutionary drivers for cognitive abilities.

Keywords:
brain evolutioncerebral cortexintelligencemesonidopalliummushroom bodiesvertical lobe

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Area of Science:

  • Comparative Neurobiology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Animal Cognition

Background:

  • Complex brains and high intelligence have evolved independently multiple times across the animal kingdom.
  • Examples include insects, octopodid molluscs, teleost fish, birds (corvids, psittacids), cetaceans, elephants, and primates.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore the convergent evolution of complex brains and intelligence in diverse animal taxa.
  • To identify common neuroanatomical structures associated with high intelligence.
  • To investigate the varying selective pressures driving cognitive evolution across different species.

Main Methods:

  • Comparative analysis of neuroanatomical structures across different animal groups.
  • Review of existing literature on cognitive abilities and their neural correlates.
  • Identification of homologous or analogous multimodal brain centers.

Main Results:

  • High intelligence is consistently associated with multimodal processing centers (e.g., mushroom bodies, vertical lobe, pallium, cerebral cortex).
  • These centers feature highly ordered associative neuronal networks.
  • Evolutionary drivers for intelligence vary, including spatial learning, foraging, social learning, and instrumental learning.

Conclusions:

  • Convergent evolution has repeatedly produced complex brains and intelligence in animals.
  • Specialized multimodal brain regions are a common feature of intelligent species.
  • Diverse ecological and social factors drive the evolution of advanced cognitive abilities.