Understanding the human brain: insights from comparative biology
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Updated: Sep 29, 2025

Microdissection of Mouse Brain into Functionally and Anatomically Different Regions
Published on: February 15, 2021
Alex R DeCasien1, Robert A Barton2, James P Higham3
1Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY, USA; New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP), New York, NY, USA; Section on Developmental Neurogenomics, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Abstract:
Human brains are exceptionally large, support distinctive cognitive processes, and evolved by natural selection to mediate adaptive behavior. Comparative biology situates the human brain within an evolutionary context to illuminate how it has been shaped by selection and how its structure relates to evolutionary function, while identifying the developmental and molecular changes that were involved. Recent applications of powerful phylogenetic methods have uncovered new findings, some of which overturn conventional wisdom about how and why brains evolve. Here, we focus on four long-standing claims about brain evolution and discuss how new work has either contradicted these claims or shown the relevant phenomena to be more complicated than previously appreciated. Throughout, we emphasize studies of non-human primates and hominins, our close relatives and recent ancestors.
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