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Introduction. Human Reproductive Behaviour. Sexual Selection. Unravelling Human Sexuality. Archetypes of the Psyche: Fears and Anxieties as Adaptive Responses. Evolutionary Accounts of Mental Disorders. The Evolution of Brain Size. The Evolution of Intelligence. Study Aids.

Articulate language is a form of communication unique to humans. Over time, a spectrum of researchers has proposed various frameworks attempting to explain the evolutionary acquisition of this distinctive human attribute, some deploring the apparent lack of direct evidence elucidating the phenomenon, whilst others have pointed to the contributions of palaeoanthropology, the social brain hypothesis and the fact that even amongst contemporary humans, social group sizes reflect brain size. Theologians have traditionally (largely) ignored evolutionary insights as an explanatory paradigm for the origin of humankind. However, an increasing number are, of late, contributing to a worldview of humanity which accommodates both the epistemological realities of evolutionary biology as well as insights from theology. This includes reviewing and assessing the origins of articulate language and the physiological attributes necessary for its development. It is in this sense that the evolution of language is relevant from a theological perspective. The association between mental capacity and articulate language, already noted by Darwin, is relevant in explaining the larger group sizes found amongst humans, as is the incipient role played by the evolution of laughter in triggering the neuroendocrine system promoting bonding, to the eventual development of articulate language. Our aim is to review a selection of contemporary erspectives on the evolution of language, amongst others, reasons for the ease with which young children acquire language competency, and whether we may be hardwired for language from birth. Further reading is suggested in the footnotes. Contribution: This article is part of a special collection reflecting on the evolutionary building blocks of our past, present and future. It is based on historical thought and contemporary research with regards to the evolutionary emergence of language. It fits well with the intersectional and trans-disciplinary nature of this collection and journal.

Against the background of “arms race” style competitive explanations for complex human cognition, such as the Social Intelligence Hypothesis (Byrne and Whiten in Machiavellian intelligence, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988; Humphrey, in Bateson PPG, Hinde RH (eds) Growing points in ethology, Cambridge University Press, pp 303–317, 1976; Jolly in Science, 10.1126/science.153.3735.501, 1966), and theories that tie complex cognition with environmental variability more broadly (Godfrey-Smith in Complexity and the function of mind in nature, Cambridge University Press, 1996, in Sternberg R, Kaufman J (eds) The evolution of intelligence, Lawrence Earlbaum and Associates, 2001), the idea that culturally inherited mechanisms for social cognition would be more capable of responding to the labile social environment is a compelling one. Whilst it is tempting to think that the evolvability of culturally inherited cognitive mechanisms such as Cecilia Heyes’ (2018) cognitive gadgets would be akin to culturally inherited tools like axes or canoes (i.e., relatively easy to modify to adaptive benefit, and relatively robustly inherited), I draw on established theory in evolutionary developmental biology to show that this is a mistake. Their causal translucency, along with the degree to which they would be integrated within the organism, make cognitive gadgets far more like genetically inherited traits with respect to their evolvability. Consequently, their evolution is unlikely to be particularly fast or nimble. In making clear the constraints on the evolution of culturally inherited cognition and how they must influence our theorising the discussion also highlights the value of thinking about evolvability in this domain.

Purpose The originality of the crowd cyber system lies in the fact that it possesses the intelligence of multiple groups including intelligence of people, intelligence of objects and intelligence of machines. However, quantitative analysis of the level of intelligence is not sufficient, due to many limitations, such as the unclear definition of intelligence and the inconformity of human intelligence quotient (IQ) test and artificial intelligence assessment methods. This paper aims to propose a new crowd intelligence measurement framework from the harmony of adaption and practice to measure intelligence in crowd network. Design/methodology/approach The authors draw on the ideas of traditional Confucianism, which sees intelligence from the dimensions of IQ and effectiveness. First, they clarify the related concepts of intelligence and give a new definition of crowd intelligence in the form of a set. Second, they propose four stages of the evolution of intelligence from low to high, and sort out the dilemma of intelligence measurement at the present stage. Third, they propose a framework for measuring crowd intelligence based on two dimensions. Findings The generalized IQ operator model is optimized, and a new IQ algorithm is proposed. Individuals with different IQs can have different relationships, such as cooperative, competitive, antagonistic and so on. The authors point out four representative forms of intelligence as well as its evolution stages. Research limitations/implications The authors, will use more rigorous mathematical symbols to represent the logical relationships between different individuals, and consider applying the measurement framework to a real-life situation to enrich the research on crowd intelligence in the further study. Originality/value Intelligence measurement is one of foundations of crowd science. This research lays the foundation for studying the interaction among human, machine and things from the perspective of crowd intelligence, which owns significant scientific value.

Here, we summarize the current knowledge on cell diversity in the cortex and other brain regions from in vivo mouse models and in vitro models based on pluripotent stem cells. We discuss the mechanisms underlying cell proliferation and temporal progression that leads to the sequential generation of neurons dedicated to different layers of the cortex. We highlight models of corticogenesis from stem cells that recapitulate specific transcriptional and connectivity patterns from different cortical areas. We overview state-of-the art of human brain organoids modeling different brain regions, and we discuss insights into human cortical evolution from stem cells. Finally, we interrogate human brain organoid models for their competence to recapitulate the essence of human brain development.

La discusión sobre la metacognición, un fenómeno cognitivo de reciente caracterización, indispensable en los procesos educativos y la resolución de diferentes problemáticas, se ubica, particularmente, en dos campos disciplinares: la psicología evolutiva y el procesamiento de información; de allí se desprenden perspectivas teóricas que enfatizan en fenómenos como: la teoría de la mente, la evolución de la inteligencia, la sensación del saber, la comprensión, el conocimiento y la regulación. Como conclusiones, para el docente, destacamos la importancia de hacer conscientes las formas de procesamiento mental que realizan los estudiantes como posibilidad de adecuar las estrategias de enseñanza, un requerimiento clave para garantizar que el aprendizaje y el desarrollo sucedan y que el estudiante pueda configurar un rol más efectivo. The discussion about metacognition, a recently characterized cognitive phenomenon, indispensable in education processes and problem-solving, falls within two particular fields of knowledge, i.e., evolutionary psychology and information processing. From these fields come the theoretical perspectives that emphasize phenomena such as the theory of the mind, the evolution of intelligence, the sense of knowledge, understanding, knowledge, and regulation. As conclusions, for the teacher, we emphasize the importance of raising awareness about students' mental processing manners as a possibility to adapt teaching strategies, an essential requirement to ensure that learning and development occur and that the student engages more effectively.

Because the human brain is considerably larger than those of other primates, it is not surprising that its energy requirements would far exceed that of any of the species within the order. Recently, the development of stem cell technologies and single-cell transcriptomics provides novel ways to address the question of what specific genomic changes underlie the human brain's unique phenotype. In this review, we consider what is currently known about human brain metabolism using a variety of methods from brain imaging and stereology to transcriptomics. Next, we examine novel opportunities that stem cell technologies and single-cell transcriptomics provide to further our knowledge of human brain energetics. These new experimental approaches provide the ability to elucidate the functional effects of changes in genetic sequence and expression levels that potentially had a profound impact on the evolution of the human brain.

The article offers a critical analysis of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) as applied to new and quasi-religious movements, and uncovers implicit conceptual and theoretical commitments of the approach. A discussion of CSR’s application to new religious movement (NRM) case studies (charismatic leadership, paradise representations, Aḥmadiyya, and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) identifies concerns about the theorized relationship between CSR and wider socio-cultural factors, and proposals for CSR’s implication in wider processes are discussed. The main discussion analyses three themes in recent work relating CSR to religious and religion-like activities that extend and reframe the model. These include (1) identification of distinctive and accessible cognitive pathways associated with new forms of religious belief and practice (in particular in ‘New Age’ movements), (2) application of CSR to movements and practices outside traditional definitions of religion (near death experiences, conspiracy theories, virtual reality), and (3) engaging CSR in wider cultural processes and negotiations (religion in healthcare settings, and the definition of the study of esoteric religious traditions within academic domains). The conclusion identifies two particular findings: (1) that application of CSR in these areas renders underlying cognitive processes more available to scrutiny and (2) that CSR is employed to identify and enlarge the category of religion. The conclusion suggests that the study of CSR in its application to NRMs and quasi-religion identifies a wide field of common and overlapping themes and interests in which CSR is a more active operand than is commonly assumed.

The study of church growth has historically been divided into two strands of research: the Church Growth Movement and the Social Science approach. This article argues that Dunbar’s Social Brain Hypothesis represents a legitimate and fruitful third strand in the study of church growth, sharing features of both previous strands but identical with neither. We argue that five predictions derived from the Social Brain Hypothesis are accurately borne out in the empirical and practical church growth literature: that larger congregations lead to lower active engagement from members; that single-leader congregations are limited to around 150 members; that congregations of 150 are further stratified into smaller functioning groups; that congregations expanding beyond 150 members undergo internal tensions and are forced to reorganise; and that congregations larger than 150 will require structural sub-divisions to retain active member involvement. While these assertions are reflected in the church growth literature and articulate the common sense assumptions of church growth experts, the Social Brain Hypothesis offers a coherent theoretical framework which unifies these observations and thereby represents a distinctive contribution to church growth studies.

BACKGROUND For the followers of criminal anthropology, during the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the association "anatomical anomaly - psyche anomaly" represented an immediate diagnostic tool to identify mental illness and consequently the tendency to become a criminal. In this article, we analyse a clinical report published in 1900 in which the author, Dr. Saporito, described five brains of alienated criminals from the Aversa asylum. METHODS Through the observations of Dr. Saporito's autoptic evaluations and the literature of the times, the beliefs of the positivist science of that time are highlighted. RESULTS The identification of multiple physical anomalies focused on the brains, with particular attention to the alteration at the level of some fissures, could lead to identify psychiatric disorders and criminal tendency. CONCLUSIONS From the observations presented here, the author reiterated that several anomalies recorded in these five brains reproduced atavistic characteristics, which disappeared in the ontogenetic and phylogenetic evolution of the human brain.

More and more biological evidence has been yielded in support of physical evolution of species. In contrast, psychological evolution has been, so far, studied primarily with theoretical exploration. There are two theoretical approaches to the evolution on cognitive ability. The first, Common Ancestor, states that all species, including humans, have a common ancestor, from whom particular cognitive abilities in all existing species are inherited. The second, Evolutionary Convergence holds that different species possess similar cognitive abilities. The controversy between the two theories lies in the explanation of similar cognitive abilities in different species, one focusing on theoretical deduction and the other on parsimony in interpretation. However, both agree that basic cognitive abilities can be a starting point for studying the evolution on cognitive abilities. The top-down and the bottom-up approaches are usually used to study the cognitive abilities of different species. The top-down approach focuses on the cross-species levels of presence of a certain cognitive ability, and explores its level of presence among different species in relation to that in human beings. For the bottom-up approach, researchers generally analyze and study basic cognitive abilities, or the basic components of complex cognitive abilities, and systematically study the degree of difference between species in these basic cognitive abilities, which are universally present across species. The top-down approach can provide a precondition for defining the species boundaries of certain cognitive abilities, or which species have such abilities, while the bottom-up approach employs systematic methods to study the basic components of relevant cognitive abilities through cross-species experiments. The elaboration above suggests that we can understand the emergence and development of certain cognitive abilities, and the relationship between human’s advanced and basic cognitive abilities from the perspective of phylogenesis. Phylogenetic comparative methods are an important kind of bottom-up method. For a basic cognitive ability, the method of phylogenetic comparison is used to conduct cross-species experiments, so that the data obtained can be compared systematically. The results are of great significance for answering theoretical questions regarding cognitive evolution. For example, Amici and colleagues examined the ability of social inhibitory control in six primates (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas, capuchin monkeys, and spider monkeys), and found that the level of fission-fusion dynamics could partially predict this ability. MacLean and colleagues studied the inhibitory control of 567 individuals from 36 species (birds and mammals), and showed that inhibitory control was positively correlated with absolute brain volume. Dietary breadth also predicted inhibitory control in the primate species studied. Jones and colleagues tested numerical cognition in three lemurs ( Lemur catta , Eulemur mongoz , and Eulemur Macaco flavifrons ), rhesus monkeys ( Macaca mulatta ), and human adults. They did not find any difference in nature among the four non-human groups in this ability. Specifically, the internal representation by all four non-humans was as predicted by the approximate number system and fit the linear representation model of the system. Cognitive differences among the five groups mainly lied in their numerical acuity, with humans having the lowest Weber fractions and the highest sensitivity. Chen improved their methods, tested humans in five age groups and golden snub-nosed monkeys ( Rhinopithecus roxellana ), and obtained findings consistent with those of the previous study. With the rise of cross-species systematic comparison, the latest trend of in-depth exploration into cognitive ability, research on phylogenesis on cognitive ability has entered a quantitative stage. Quantitative research on the relationship between evolutionary adaptive pressure and cognitive ability will help reveal patterns in the emergence and development on cognitive abilities in different species and even human beings.

The expansion of the cerebral cortex is one of the most distinctive changes in the evolution of the human brain. Cortical expansion and related increases in cortical folding may have contributed to emergence of our capacities for high-order cognitive abilities. Molecular analysis of humans, archaic hominins, and non-human primates has allowed identification of chromosomal regions showing evolutionary changes at different points of our phylogenetic history. In this study, we assessed the contributions of genomic annotations spanning 30 million years to human sulcal morphology measured via MRI in more than 18,000 participants from the UK Biobank. We found that variation within brain-expressed human gained enhancers, regulatory genetic elements that emerged since our last common ancestor with Old World monkeys, explained more trait heritability than expected for the left and right calloso-marginal posterior fissures and the right central sulcus. Intriguingly, these are sulci that have been previously linked to the evolution of locomotion in primates and later on bipedalism in our hominin ancestors.

Humans are unique in their diet, physiology and socio‑reproductive behavior compared to other primates. They are also unique in the ubiquitous adaptation to all biomes and habitats. From an evolutionary perspective, these trends seem to have started about two million years ago, coinciding with the emergence of encephalization, the reduction of the dental apparatus, the adoption of a fully terrestrial lifestyle, resulting in the emergence of the modern anatomical bauplan, the focalization of certain activities in the landscape, the use of stone tools, and the exit from Africa. It is in this period that clear taphonomic evidence of a switch in diet with respect to Pliocene hominins occurred, with the adoption of carnivory. Until now, the degree of carnivorism in early humans remained controversial. A persistent hypothesis is that hominins acquired meat irregularly (potentially as fallback food) and opportunistically through klepto‑foraging. Here, we test this hypothesis and show, in contrast, that the butchery practices of early Pleistocene hominins (unveiled through systematic study of the patterning and intensity of cut marks on their prey) could not have resulted from having frequent secondary access to carcasses. We provide evidence of hominin primary access to animal resources and emphasize the role that meat played in their diets, their ecology and their anatomical evolution, ultimately resulting in the ecologically unrestricted terrestrial adaptation of our species. This has major implications to the evolution of human physiology and potentially for the evolution of the human brain., We thank the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities for funding this research (HAR2017-82463-C4-1-P) and for fellowships to JA,GCA and MVR, and the Ministry of Culture for their funding through the program of Archaeology Abroad. We also thank the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) (AR-HS 2018-01045-3), and the Santander Bank (AR-HS 2018-01045-3) for their funding support. Our thanks also to the Palarq Foundation and E2in2 for financial support.

The social brain hypothesis proposes that enlarged brains have evolved in response to the increasing cognitive demands that complex social life in larger groups places on primates and other mammals. However, this reasoning can be challenged by evidence that brain size has decreased in the evolutionary transitions from solitary to social larger groups in the case of Neolithic humans and some eusocial insects. Different hypotheses can be identified in the literature to explain this reduction in brain size. We evaluate some of them from the perspective of recent approaches to cognitive science, which support the idea that the basis of cognition can span over brain, body, and environment. Here we show through a minimal cognitive model using an evolutionary robotics methodology that the neural complexity, in terms of neural entropy and degrees of freedom of neural activity, of smaller-brained agents evolved in social interaction is comparable to the neural complexity of larger-brained agents evolved in solitary conditions. The nonlinear time series analysis of agents' neural activity reveals that the decoupled smaller neural network is intrinsically lower dimensional than the decoupled larger neural network. However, when smaller-brained agents are interacting, their actual neural complexity goes beyond its intrinsic limits achieving results comparable to those obtained by larger-brained solitary agents. This suggests that the smaller-brained agents are able to enhance their neural complexity through social interaction, thereby offsetting the reduced brain size.

Based on the research done by Dunbar and the resulting Social Brain Hypothesis, the present study introduced a mathematical model for the development of follower numbers and the number of followed accounts regarding users/influencers of Social Media platforms. Under very simple assumptions the mathematical model suggests that an universal upper bound to follower and followed numbers exists. The theoretical upper bound is then empirically validated by using a representative data set of 255 influencers on Instagram from the field of women’s fashion. The follower numbers show convergence to a common boundary for the years 2018 to 2019 and stagnation for 2019 to 2020, while the number of followed accounts show stagnation for 2018 to 2019 and convergence for 2019 and 2020. The model in conjunction with its empirical validation therefore provides the mathematical background to establish the socio-biological Social Brain Hypothesis in the field of influencer marketing in regards to Social Media platforms.

In PNAS, Fayet et al. (1) report on two cases of tool use in a seabird. In two distant populations they recorded Arctic puffins ( Fratercula arctica ) using sticks to scratch themselves (Fig. 1). The documentation of tool use in this species expands the ever-growing list of tool-using birds through rare observations under natural conditions. Although it is neither the first observation of tool use in wild seabirds, nor the first of stick-tool use outside of a foraging context in wild birds, these findings contribute to the debate on the evolutionary and cognitive origins of tool use. Fig. 1. A puffin holding a stick in its beak before using it as a tool to scratch itself. Image courtesy of M. T. Ridoff (artist). Discoveries of tool use in animals attract considerable attention, because tool use remains rare in nature and people intuitively associate it with intelligence. Not long ago, the wielding of tools was considered a purely human affair. In the 1950s, when Jane Goodall observed wild chimpanzees fishing for termites, we realized that tool use does not exclusively define us. Since then, tool use has been observed in an increasing number of species, spanning from invertebrates to apes, but is still only found in fewer than 1% of known genera so far (2). From this perspective, every discovery of a tool-using species adds an important puzzle piece to understanding this fascinating, rare, and multifarious phenomenon (2⇓–4). In the traditional view, tool use reveals intelligence. Therefore, animal tool use has been regarded as one of few windows for studying the evolution of intelligence and our own evolutionary past. However, the picture today is more complex, and while tool use oftentimes does relate to advanced cognition, it is not always the case. The debate typically centers on what cognitive abilities … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: avbayern{at}orn.mpg.de. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Mobile hunter-gatherers are often characterized as living in small communities where mobility and group size are products of the environmentally determined distribution of resources, and where social organization is multi-scalar: groups of co-residents are nested within small communities that are, in turn, nested within small-scale societies. Such organization is often assumed to be reflective of the human past, emerging as human cognition and communication evolved through earlier fission-fusion social processes, typical of many primate social systems. We review the history of this assumption in light of recent empirical data of co-residence and social networks among contemporary hunter-gatherers. We suggest that while residential and foraging groups are often small, there is little evidence that these groups are drawn from small communities nested within small-scale societies. Most mobile hunter-gatherers live in groups dominated by links between non-relatives, where residential group membership is fluid and supports large-scale social networks of interaction. We investigate these dynamics with fine-grained observational data on Martu foraging groups and social organization in Australia's Western Desert. The composition of Martu foraging groups is distinct from that of residential groups, although both are dominated by ties between individuals who have no close biological relationships. The number of individuals in a foraging group varies with habitat quality, but in a dynamic way, as group size is shaped by ecological legacies of land use. The flexible size and composition of foraging groups link individuals across their "estates": spatially explicit storehouses of ritual and relational wealth, inherited across generations through maintaining expansive networks of social interaction in a large and complex society. We propose that human cognition is tied to development of such expansive social relationships and co-evolved with dynamic socio-ecological interactions expressed in large-scale networks of relational wealth.

RESUMEN El objetivo de este artículo es demostrar la necesidad para Colombia de una inteligencia estratégica basada en el aporte de la disciplina histórica para su análisis. Se asume que historia e inteligencia, en cuanto disciplinas, tienden a ser interdependientes, pues incluso en lo metodológico resultan ampliamente complementarias. El aporte historiográfico para el desarrollo de la inteligencia ha sido significativo, tanto para reconstruir la evolución de esta como para contextualizar la inteligencia estratégica. La falta de esta última en Colombia se explica por la adopción del modelo francés de "alta policía" y por una historiografía que ha propugnado el culto a la formalidad del derecho internacional por parte de los dirigentes colombianos. ABSTRACT The objective of this article is to demonstrate Colombia's need for a strategic intelligence based on the contribution of history as discipline for its analysis. It is assumed that history and intelligence, as disciplines, tend to be interdependent because they are widely complementary, even in the methodological. Historiography has significantly contributed to the development of intelligence, not only to reconstruct the evolution of intelligence but also to contextualize strategic intelligence. The absence of the latter in Colombia is explained by the adoption of the French model of "high policing," as well as by a wide historiography that advocates for the cult of formality of the international law by Colombian leaders.

Intelligence in large-brained vertebrates might have evolved through independent, yet similar processes based on comparable socioecological pressures and slow life histories. This convergent evolutionary route, however, cannot explain why cephalopods developed large brains and flexible behavioural repertoires: cephalopods have fast life histories and live in simple social environments. Here, we suggest that the loss of the external shell in cephalopods (i) caused a dramatic increase in predatory pressure, which in turn prevented the emergence of slow life histories, and (ii) allowed the exploitation of novel challenging niches, thus favouring the emergence of intelligence. By highlighting convergent and divergent aspects between cephalopods and large-brained vertebrates we illustrate how the evolution of intelligence might not be constrained to a single evolutionary route.

Compared to most other mammals and birds, anthropoid primates have unusually complex societies characterised by bonded social groups. Among primates, this effect is encapsulated in the social brain hypothesis: the robust correlation between various indices of social complexity (social group size, grooming clique size, tactical behaviour, coalition formation) and brain size. Hitherto, this has always been interpreted as a simple, unitary relationship. Using data for five different indices of brain volume from four independent brain databases, we show that the distribution of group size plotted against brain size is best described as a set of four distinct, very narrowly defined grades which are unrelated to phylogeny. The allocation of genera to these grades is highly consistent across the different data sets and brain indices. We show that these grades correspond to the progressive evolution of bonded social groups. In addition, we show, for those species that live in multilevel social systems, that the typical sizes of the different grouping levels in each case coincide with different grades. This suggests that the grades correspond to demographic attractors that are especially stable. Using five different cognitive indices, we show that the grades correlate with increasing social cognitive skills, suggesting that the cognitive demands of managing group cohesion increase progressively across grades. We argue that the grades themselves represent glass ceilings on animals' capacity to maintain social and spatial coherence during foraging and that, in order to evolve more highly bonded groups, species have to be able to invest in costly forms of cognition.

Recent advances in stem cell, genome editing, and iPSC technologies have made it possible to study human brain evolution using this iPSC-derived brain organoids as a model system. In this chapter, we will explore the evolution of the human brain and the central nervous system and discuss what we can learn from genomic comparisons studies. We will also examine the model organisms used to study gene expression and cell biology and delve into the new world of iPSC-derived brain organoids and what this new model system can tell us about human brain evolution.

The role of hypotheses is central both in church-related research and in Christian ministry. Hypotheses guide the collection of data to determine what is true in research and provide tentative guidelines for action in ministry, even when they are not yet confirmed. Well-constructed hypotheses are based on previous research and provide clear potential solutions to research problems. They succinctly posit a testable relationship between two or more variables. Such hypotheses can be tested through appropriately designed research. Statistical techniques can indicate to what degree the evidence collected supports the hypotheses. In church-based research, hypotheses to be examined can come from a body of literature (e.g., the Church Growth Movement), a practitioner’s experience, theories from other domains (e.g., the Social Brain Hypothesis; Dunbar, 1993), and modeling phenomena using analogies (e.g., modeling the church lifecycle as an epidemic; Hayward, 2015, 2018).

Theorists have sought to identify the key selection pressures that drove the evolution of our species’ cognitive abilities, life histories and cooperative inclinations. Focusing on two leading theories, each capable of accounting for many of the rapid changes in our lineage, we present a simple experiment designed to assess the explanatory power of both the Machiavellian Intelligence and the Cultural Brain/Intelligence Hypotheses. Children (aged 3–7 years) observed a novel social interaction that provided them with behavioural information that could either be used to outmanoeuvre a partner in subsequent interactions or for cultural learning. The results show that, even after four rounds of repeated interaction and sometimes lower pay-offs, children continued to rely on copying the observed behaviour instead of harnessing the available social information to strategically extract pay-offs (stickers) from their partners. Analyses further reveal that superior mentalizing abilities are associated with more targeted cultural learning – the selective copying of fewer irrelevant actions – while superior generalized cognitive abilities are associated with greater imitation of irrelevant actions. Neither mentalizing capacities nor more general measures of cognition explain children's ability to strategically use social information to maximize pay-offs. These results provide developmental evidence favouring the Cultural Brain/Intelligence Hypothesis over the Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis.

Once the reader learns and uses dimensional analysis it is easy to understand why is so valuable and then questions why they didn’t use it before. Perhaps one answers lies on the evolution of the human brain to understand the concept of dimensionless variables. This chapter describes the origin and historic evolution of dimensional analysis and shows its relatively recent spread from the beginning of the 20th century.

In response to commentaries, I address questions regarding the proposal that general intelligence (g) is a manifestation of the functioning of intramodular and intermodular brain networks undergirded by the efficiency of mitochondrial functioning (Geary 2018). The core issues include the relative contribution of mitochondrial functioning to individual differences in g; studies that can be used to test associated hypotheses; and, the adaptive function of intelligence from an evolutionary perspective. I attempt to address these and related issues, as well as note areas in which other issues remain to be addressed.

A new method provides evidence that evolution of gene activity in the human brain was driven by natural selection., A longstanding hypothesis is that divergence between humans and chimpanzees might have been driven more by regulatory level adaptations than by protein sequence adaptations. This has especially been suggested for regulatory adaptations in the evolution of the human brain. We present a new method to detect positive selection on transcription factor binding sites on the basis of measuring predicted affinity change with a machine learning model of binding. Unlike other methods, this approach requires neither defining a priori neutral sites nor detecting accelerated evolution, thus removing major sources of bias. We scanned the signals of positive selection for CTCF binding sites in 29 human and 11 mouse tissues or cell types. We found that human brain–related cell types have the highest proportion of positive selection. This result is consistent with the view that adaptive evolution to gene regulation has played an important role in evolution of the human brain.

A human-specific gene is a determinant of the cognitive architecture of the human cerebral cortex

Background The remarkable abilities of the human brain are distinctive features that set us apart from other animals. However, our understanding of how the brain has changed in the human lineage remains incomplete, but is essential for understanding cognition, behavior, and brain disorders in humans. Here, we compared the expression trajectory in brain development between humans and rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) to explore their divergent transcriptome profiles. Results Results showed that brain development could be divided into two stages, with a demarcation date in a range between 25 and 26 postconception weeks (PCW) for humans and 17-23PCWfor rhesus macaques, rather than birth time that have been widely used as a uniform demarcation time of neurodevelopment across species. Dynamic network biomarker (DNB) analysis revealed that the two demarcation dates were transition phases during brain development, after which the brain transcriptome profiles underwent critical transitions characterized by highly fluctuating DNB molecules. We also found that changes between early and later brain developmental stages (as defined by the demarcation points) were substantially greater in the human brain than in the macaque brain. To explore the molecular mechanism underlying prolonged timing during early human brain development, we carried out expression heterochrony tests. Results demonstrated that compared to macaques, more heterochronic genes exhibited neoteny during early human brain development, consistent with the delayed demarcation time in the human lineage, and proving that neoteny in human brain development could be traced to the prenatal period. We further constructed transcriptional networks to explore the profile of early human brain development and identified the hub gene RBFOX1 as playing an important role in regulating early brain development. We also found RBFOX1 evolved rapidly in its non-coding regions, indicating that this gene played an important role in human brain evolution. Our findings provide evidence that RBFOX1 is a likely key hub gene in early human brain development and evolution. Conclusions By comparing gene expression profiles between humans and macaques, we found divergent expression trajectories between the two species, which deepens our understanding of the evolution of the human brain.

A long standing hypothesis is that divergence between humans and chimpanzees might have been driven more by regulatory level adaptions than by protein sequence adaptations. This has especially been suggested for regulatory adaptions in the evolution of the human brain. There is some support for this hypothesis, but it has been limited by the lack of a reliable and powerful way to detect positive selection on regulatory sequences. We present a new method to detect positive selection on transcription factor binding sites, based on Orr’s sign test applied to a machine learning model of binding. Unlike other methods, this requires neither defining a priori neutral sites, nor detecting accelerated evolution, thus removing major sources of bias. The method is validated in flies, mice, and primates, by a McDonald-Kreitman-like measure of polymorphism vs. divergence, by experimental binding site gains and losses, and by changes in expression levels. We scanned the signals of positive selection for CTCF binding sites in 29 human and 11 mouse tissues or cell types. We found that human brain related cell types have the highest proportion of positive selection. This is consistent with the importance of adaptive evolution on gene regulation in the evolution of the human brain.

Humans are highly social animals whose survival and well-being depend on their capacity to cooperate in complex social settings. Advances in anthropology and psychology have demonstrated the importance of cooperation for enhancing social cohesion and minimizing conflict. The understanding of social behavior is informed by the notion of social cognition, a set of mental operations including emotion perception, mentalizing, and empathy. The social brain hypothesis posits that the mammalian brain has enlarged over evolution to meet the challenges of social life, culminating in a large human brain well adapted for social cognition. The structures subserving social cognition are mainly located in the frontal and temporal lobes, and although gray matter is critical, social cognition also requires white matter. Whereas the social brain hypothesis assumes that brain enlargement has been driven by neocortical expansion, cerebral white matter has expanded even more robustly than the neocortex, coinciding with the emergence of social cognition. White matter expansion is most evident in the frontal and temporal lobes, where it enhances connectivity between regions critical for social cognition. Myelination has, in turn, conferred adaptive social advantages by enabling prompt empathic concern for offspring and by strengthening networks that support cooperation and the related capacities of altruism and morality. Social cognition deficits related to myelinated tract involvement occur in many disorders, including stroke, Binswanger disease, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, glioma, and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. The contribution of white matter to social cognition can be conceptualized as the enhancement of cooperation through brain connectivity.

Evolutionary perspective is critical for understanding human biology, human medicine, and the traits that make human beings unique. One of the crucial characteristics that sets humans apart from other extant species is our cognitive ability, which allows for complex processes including symbolic thought, theory of mind, and syntactical-grammatical language, and is thought to arise from the expansion and specialization of the human nervous system. It has been hypothesized that the same evolutionary changes that allowed us to develop these valuable skills made humans susceptible to neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disease. Unfortunately, our lack of access to our extinct ancestors makes this a difficult hypothesis to test, but recent collaborations between the fields of evolution, genetics, genomics, neuroscience, neurology and psychiatry have begun to provide some clues. Here, we will outline recent work in those fields that have utilized our growing knowledge of disease risk genes and loci, identified by wide-scale genetic studies, and nervous system development and function to draw conclusions about the impact of human-specific aspects of evolution. We will discuss studies that assess evolution at a variety of scales including at the levels of whole brain regions, cell types, synapses, metabolic processes, gene expression patterns, and gene regulation. At all of these levels, there is preliminary evidence that human-specific brain features are linked to neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disease risk.

Adrenarche, the post-natal rise of DHEA and DHEAS, is unique to humans and the African Apes. Recent findings have linked DHEA in humans to the development of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (LDPFC) between the ages of 4-8 years and the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) from 7 to 12 years of age. Given the association of the LDLPFC with the 5-to-8 transition and the rTPJ with mentalizing during middle childhood DHEA may have played an important role in the evolution of the human brain. I argue that increasing protein in the diet over the course of human evolution not only increased levels of DHEAS, but linked meat consumption with brain development during the important 5- to-8 transition. Consumption of animal protein has been associated with IGF-1, implicated in the development of the adrenal zona reticularis (ZR), the site of DHEAS production. In humans and chimps, the zona reticularis emerges at 3-4 years, along with the onset of DHEA/S production. For chimps this coincides with weaning and peak synaptogenesis. Among humans, weaning is completed around 2 ½ years, while synaptogenesis peaks around 5 years. Thus, in chimpanzees, early cortical maturation is tied to the mother; in humans it may be associated with post-weaning provisioning by others. I call for further research on adrenarche among the African apes as a critical comparison to humans. I also suggest research in subsistence populations to establish the role of nutrition and energetics in the timing of adrenarche and the onset of middle childhood.

From the medical field to agriculture, from energy to transportation, every industry is going through a revolution by embracing artificial intelligence (AI); nevertheless, AI is still in its infancy. Inspired by the evolution of the human brain, this article demonstrates a novel method and framework to synthesize an artificial brain with cognitive abilities by taking advantage of the same process responsible for the growth of the biological brain called “neuroembryogenesis.” This framework shares some of the key behavioral aspects of the biological brain, such as spiking neurons, neuroplasticity, neuronal pruning, and excitatory and inhibitory interactions between neurons, together making it capable of learning and memorizing. One of the highlights of the proposed design is its potential to incrementally improve itself over generations based on system performance, using genetic algorithms. A proof of concept at the end of this article demonstrates how a simplified implementation of the human visual cortex using the proposed framework is capable of character recognition. Our framework is open source, and the code is shared with the scientific community at http://www.feagi.org .

The evolution of the human brain and visual system is widely believed to have been shaped by the need to process and make sense out of expressive information, particularly via the face. We are so attuned to expressive information in the face that it informs even stable trait inferences (e.g., Knutson, 1996) through a process we refer to here as the face-specific fundamental attribution error (Albohn, Brandenburg, & Adams, 2019). We even derive highly consistent beliefs about the emotional lives of others based on emotion-resembling facial appearance (e.g., low versus high brows, big versus small eyes etc.) in faces we know are completely devoid of overt expression (i.e., emotion overgeneralization effect: see Zebrowitz, Kikuchi, & Fellous, 2010). The present studies extend these insights to better understand lay beliefs about older and younger adults’ emotion dispositions and their impact on behavioral outcomes. In Study 1, we found that older versus younger faces objectively have more negative emotion-resembling cues in the face (using computer vision), and that raters likewise attribute more negative emotional dispositions to older versus younger adults based just on neutral facial appearance (see too Adams, Garrido, Albohn, Hess, & Kleck, 2016). In Study 2, we found that people appear to encode these negative emotional appearance cues in memory more so for older than younger adult faces. Finally, in Study 3 we exam downstream behavioral consequences of these negative attributions, showing that observers’ avoidance of older versus younger faces is mediated by emotion resembling facial appearance.

The social brain hypothesis proposes that the complexity of human brains has coevolved with increasing complexity of social interactions in primate societies. The present study explored the possible relationships between brain morphology and the richness of more intimate ‘inner’ and wider ‘outer’ social circles by integrating Bayesian hierarchical modeling with a large cohort sample from the UK Biobank resource (n = 10 000). In this way, we examined population volume effects in 36 regions of the ‘social brain’, ranging from lower sensory to higher associative cortices. We observed strong volume effects in the visual sensory network for the group of individuals with satisfying friendships. Further, the limbic network displayed several brain regions with substantial volume variations in individuals with a lack of social support. Our population neuroscience approach thus showed that distinct networks of the social brain show different patterns of volume variations linked to the examined social indices.

According to both psychologists and Gandhi, empathy is an important precursor of nonviolence. If empathy is of such great importance, there should be some reason for its presence through the ages and throughout the phylogenetic scale. The chapter first focuses on whether cooperative behavior, empathy and altruism are commonly seen in animals. The chapter then moves to the biological substrates of nonviolence, namely, the role of oxytocin in promoting trust and empathy and neural structures such as the mirror or Gandhi neurons and their relation to empathy and nonviolent behavior. The bulk of the studies enable us to conclude that we are hard wired for empathy and altruism, and thereby, for nonviolence. At the same time, it is clear that while psychology and neuropsychology have only recently discovered the significance of empathy and cooperative behavior, Gandhi had demonstrated how empathy can be used to overcome one’s adversary more than a century ago, revealing that the psychology of empathy would certainly be benefitted by learning from Gandhi’s use of the same. The next part of the chapter deals with studies by neurologist Dunbar and the social brain and the ways in which these studies echo Gandhian ideas regarding the village republic, ending with recent evidence from social cognitive neuropsychology. Once again, it is clear that our brain favors mutualism as against adversarialism, the presence of which suggests that there is a biological basis for the adoption of nonviolent lifestyles and that nonviolence is, indeed, as “old as the hills” as professed by Gandhi. The need of the hour is to put it into practice, one way for which could be the path shown by Gandhi.

Under the direction of Erik Goodman, BEACON has been a remarkable success. It has been a fabulous boon to those of us whose research interests are constantly evolving. Here I explain how Erik’s guidance of BEACON facilitated the professional development of many graduate students and post-docs in my lab, and allowed me to reinvent myself as a scientist multiple times during the past decade.

Modern imaging techniques provide detailed insight into the functioning of the brain in living beings. But can we get inside the brain and minds of our distant ancestors? Yes, we can. Here we report how this is achieved and discuss the evolution of the human brain with reference to the extended mind hypothesis, in which tools and objects are crucial for the cognitive processes and the social environment. Various properties of brain function are debated in relation to modelling and imagining.

The evolutionary origin of Primates' exceptionally large brains is still highly debated. Two competing explanations have received much support: the ecological hypothesis and the social brain hypothesis (SBH). We tested the SBH in (n = 82) baboons (Papio anubis) belonging to the same research centre but housed in groups with size ranging from 2 to 63 individuals. We found that baboons living in larger social groups had larger brains. This effect was driven mainly by white matter volume and to a lesser extent by grey matter volume but not by the cerebrospinal fluid. In comparison, the size of the enclosure, an ecological variable, had no such effect. In contrast to the current re-emphasis on potential ecological drivers of primate brain evolution, the present study provides renewed support for the social brain hypothesis and suggests that the social brain plastically responds to group size. Many factors may well influence brain size, yet accumulating evidence suggests that the complexity of social life might be an important determinant of brain size in primates.

According to Dunbar’s social brain hypothesis, brain capacity puts a limit on the size of social network in humans. At the same time, emotional-cognitive systems such as attachment and different relational models ( Fiske, 1991 ) may also act as driving forces behind network structure underlying relationship quality of the various ego-centered layers. The aim of our study was to examine how these cognitive systems may contribute to network organization. We examined the two inner layers of the ego-network in 274 volunteers, the support and sympathy groups, as well as close family members in comparison to friends within the support group, in terms of attachment security and underlying relational models.

The Social Brain Hypothesis posits a quantitative relationship between primate neocortex size and social network size. However, the precise social-cognitive mechanisms that drive this relationship remain elusive. Social Working Memory (SWM)—the ability to actively maintain and manipulate social information—has been proposed as a potential mechanism, but, to date, has not been linked to network size. Here, we explicitly tested this association. In Study 1, 125 participants completed a SWM task and reported on their social networks. In Study 2, 25 participants underwent fMRI during the SWM task and reported on their social networks. As predicted, in Study 1, SWM performance was significantly associated with social network size and, specifically, “Sympathy Group” size (i.e., the size of one’s core friend group). In Study 2, we conceptually replicated and extended this effect by showing that neural activity in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex and medial prefrontal cortex engaged during SWM (vs. non-social working memory) was associated with individual variation in Sympathy Group size. Taken together, these findings provide the first evidence that SWM constrains social network size, and suggest that SWM may be one social cognitive competency that underlies the Social Brain Hypothesis. In addition, whereas prior work investigating the Social Brain Hypothesis has largely focused on correlating brain structure size with social network size, to our knowledge, this is the first functional imaging evidence supporting the Social Brain Hypothesis.

The question of this investigation is, how many hours does it take to make a new friend? Drawing from Dunbar’s social brain hypothesis and Communicate Bond Belong theory, friendship status was examined as a function of hours together, shared activities, and everyday talk. In Study 1, MTurk participants ( N = 355) who had recently relocated estimated time spent with a new acquaintance. Hours together was associated with closer friendships. Time spent engaging in leisure activities also predicted closeness. In Study 2, first-year students ( N = 112) reported the number of hours spent with two new acquaintances three times over 9 weeks. Hours together was associated changes in closeness between waves. Two types of everyday talk predicted changes in closeness.

This Editorial elaborates on innovative concepts presented at the 2nd European Conference of Biomedical Research and Treatments for autism held in Bari, Italy, in November 2017. We discuss the recent publication of a paper describing how relativistic time dilation at the DNA level can lead to novel approaches in disease prevention and cure, and we elaborate on the role of the human microbiota in restoring quantum entanglement at the DNA level. According to this hypothesis, microbial degradation of a glycosaminoglycan, chondroitin sulfate, leads to restauration of gene expression, induces general and sequence-specific relativistic time dilation, restores DNA quantum entanglement, and improves the ability of DNA to retain, process and transmit information both at the biochemical and the quantum levels. It can be argued that these processes played a role in the evolution of the human brain and consciousness. Fermented aliments that today would be defined as “probiotics” were the first processed foods eaten by early humans, and it is conceivable that the effects of the microbes in those aliments on the chondroitin sulfate, coming from cartilage of animals hunted or scavenged, may have led to the biochemical, relativistic and quantum effects responsible for human evolution. Finally, we discuss the implications in the field of autism where the theory of consciousness based on quantum biology presents exciting and innovative perspectives for prevention and cure.