Image: Top row, a comparative map of cortical differences between the average adult macaque and human; middle row, a comparison between the infant and adult human brain; bottom, a comparison of human developmental and evolutionary changes.
“For a quick summary of the last 25 million years in human brain evolution, just watch how our brains change between infancy and adulthood. Over its first few decades, the human cerebral cortex — the brain’s wrinkled outer tissue — evolves in ways that parallel its evolution since we last shared a common ancestor with macaque monkeys.
It’s not an absolute one-to-one correlation, but the overlap is so striking that it’s hard to ignore, said neurobiologist David Van Essen of Washington University in St. Louis.
In a study published July 12 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Van Essen’s team compared brain scans of infant and adult humans. The resulting differences were then mapped against a comparison of cortex shape differences in adult humans and macaques, with whom our species last shared a common ancestor 25 million years ago.”
Read more at Wired (Thanks DG)
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This reminds me of the phases of embryonic and foetal development in humans. The Zygote and foetus go through stages of resembling all sorts of animal embryos, even fish! The stages of our evolution are mapped out in the stages of human ante-natal growth.
Cor, that sounded scientific, eh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory
A link to the wikipedia page that says that my info is well out of date… oops. Yes we do pass through similar stages at some points of development but not to the extent that was once thought. Or that I thought, TBH.
It was discredited over a hundred years ago… I am not that old, so why am I parroting it?
Sorry.