9/6/2024 Suzana Herculano-Houzel: As big as they can be: A new narrative of pregnancy, brain and body size in evolution
Neuroscience Brown Bag
Suzana Herculano-Houzel, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychology
Date: Friday, September 6, 2024
Time: 1:25PM-2:15PM
Location: 316 Wilson Hall
As big as they can be: A new narrative of pregnancy, brain and body size in evolution
What determines how large a brain and the animal around it are has long been assumed to lie in the genes. This talk will present a new framework, and the evidence supporting it, for an entirely different narrative of mammalian evolution in which gestation length, brain size, and body size are instead primarily the result of self-organized, self-limiting growth to the extent that the circulatory system can support. In this framework, any changing opportunities that affect energy availability will suffice to allow for virtuous circles of rapidly increasing brain and body size that come with increased gestation length – as in the story of mammalian evolution as a whole, and human evolution in particular.
Questions? Contact Jon Kaas.