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Evolution of the Brain in Humans – Paleoneurology

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Encyclopedia of Neuroscience

Definition

The evolution of the human brain from hominids existing perhaps 3–5 MYA (million years ago) to the present has been a mosaic process of size increases intercalated with episodes of reorganization of the cerebral cortex. The fossil evidence shows that reorganization preceded large-scale brain size increase, whether allometric or not, by about 2–3 MYA and again around 1 MYA, involving a reduction of primary visual cortex and cerebral asymmetries, including those within Broca’s region. These changes were followed by nearly a tripling of brain size.

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What is Paleoneurology?

Paleoneurologyis the study of the fossil evidence for brain evolution and is, at present, the only direct line of evidence as to how different animals’ brains have evolved through time. Paleoneurology is not a new branch of paleontological study as earlier publications go back to those of Oken, who found petrified mud in a crocodilian skull in 1819, as mentioned by Owen in 1841. Tilly Edinger...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Ralph L. Holloway

  2. Department of Anthropology and Biomedical Sciences, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA

    Chet C. Sherwood

  3. Department of Neuroscience, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Patrick R. Hof

  4. Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    James K. Rilling

Authors
  1. Ralph L. Holloway
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  2. Chet C. Sherwood
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  3. Patrick R. Hof
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  4. James K. Rilling
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology & Biophysics, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Marc D. Binder

  2. Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Graduate School of Medicine University of Tokyo Hongo, Bunkyo‐ku, Tokyo, Japan

    Nobutaka Hirokawa

  3. Göttingen, Germany

    Uwe Windhorst

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg

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Holloway, R.L., Sherwood, C.C., Hof, P.R., Rilling, J.K. (2009). Evolution of the Brain in Humans – Paleoneurology. In: Binder, M.D., Hirokawa, N., Windhorst, U. (eds) Encyclopedia of Neuroscience. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-29678-2_3152

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