Little Foot

The endocast of the australopith StW 573 is pretty complete, and now Amélie Beaudet and colleagues have published a very detailed and comprehensive anatomical analysis of its features. For many paleoneurological traits we still miss a reliable knowledge on intra- and inter-specific variation but, according to what we can currently see in Australopithecus, Paranthropus and chimpanzees, StW 573 does not display derived sulcal patterns in the frontal and parietal regions. Its overall endocranial form resembles the morphology of some Paranthropus specimens, although in this case there are still some issues on deformation and possible taphonomic effects (specially at the frontal bone). The study supplies a careful description of the vascular patterns, in particular for the middle meningeal artery. In humans, only our species has generally a complex vascular network, while vessels are more scarce and less connected in extinct human taxa. Nonetheless, these same vessels (or, at least, their analogous networks) are more developed in apes. Therefore, australopiths are a key group to understand what happened with these traits, and to assess the polarity of these features in the evolution of distinct hominoid branches.

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Haptic cognition

We have now published a second perspective paper on cognitive archaeology and visuospatial integration, this time particularly focused on haptic experience and prehistoric tool handling. The article reviews issues in paleoneurology, parietal evolution and body cognition, and then presents three examples of methodological approaches that can be useful to investigate hand-tool relationships: shape analysis, grasping patterns, and electrodermography. The whole perspective is intimately associated with theories in extended cognition and embodiment. It is important to take in mind that this does not precisely deal with tool-making or tool functional use, but with tool sensing. These three aspects (making, using, and sensing) are cognitively and evolutionarily related, but they are also influenced by distinct biological factors. Tool sensing is something associated with haptic feedback, body cognition and perception, and tool integration in the body scheme. Prosthetic capacity and cognitive extension deal more with sensing (for example, body-tool integration) than with mechanical issues (like, for example, manual precision). Electrodermography can reveal patterns of attention and emotional engagement during the haptic experience. All this is probably part of a powerful visuospatial sketchpad, a crucial component when taking into account the traditional models on working memory. This article is published in a volume of the series Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences, entitled “Processes of Visuo-spatial Attention and Working Memory”, edited by Timothy Hodgson (University of Lincoln). This week we have also published a preliminary survey on hand-tool morphometrics.

Globularity genes

Today, Philipp Gunz and colleagues have published a real milestone for paleoneurology: a comprehensive analysis integrating brain anatomy and paleogenetics to identify the genes involved in brain form differences between modern humans and Neanderthals. They compute an individual globularization index for a very large modern human sample size, and then look for the effect of supposedly introgressed Neanderthal genes. They found correlations between our individual brain globularity and genes involved in neurogenesis and myelination, most of all in putamen and cerebellum. Interestingly, they don’t find morphometric signals for parietal changes, even if there is evidence of actual parietal cortical differences among humans, between modern and extinct humans, and most of all between humans and apes. Furthermore, putamen and cerebellum are seriously involved in motor circuitry (including tool use?), something which is crucially coordinated by the parietal cortex, at physical (body) and virtual (visual imaging) level. As usually, caution is required when such complex methods are employed (in this case, the many assumptions in shape analysis, the many assumptions in brain imaging, and the many assumptions in paleogenetics). These results should be probably intended more to support hypotheses than to supply conclusive answers. Although these results point to individual brain shape differences among modern humans associated with neurogenesis and myelination, the study does not provide specific comments about possible functional or cognitive aspects, naming only some very general behavioral issues. Some relevant cogntive effects are, indeed, expected. The issue is definitely thorny (Neanderthal introgressed genes into our own species associated with consequences in individual brain form and development!), but should have probably deserved a more courageous interpretation. After all, also in science one must take into account that old and wise adage: if you don’t like the answer, don’t ask the question. In the supplementary information there is an amazing comparison (S1) between CT endocasts and MRI brains. This supplementary analysis is, in my opinion, a real jewel for this field, and I really hope that more future papers will be dedicated to what is here a single figure. Here an article from the New York Times.

Human brain variation

One year ago Croxson and colleagues published a survey on human and macaques brain variation, a paper which has been issued this month in Cerebral Cortex. They considered variation in white and grey matter, comparing inter and intra-specific patterns, and discussing similarities between the evolutionary and individual degree of variability. This study evidences the importance of variation as a source of evolutionary possibilities and constraints. The survey was based on only 10-20 individuals and, despite any statistical reassurance, we have to recognize that this is an unusual sample size for a study targeted to describe and quantify intra-specific diversity. Furthermore, in these kinds of analyses one has constantly the sensation that phylogenetic differences (macaque-human) are still interpreted as evolutionary differences (ancestral-descendant), which is definitely an inappropriate perspective when dealing with extant species. Also, the fact that we keep on using the term “monkey” when referring to one single species of hundreds of living, independent and diverse ones, denotes a still-alive linear approach to the evolutionary schemes (the old fashion progression monkey -> ape -> human). This paper was then commented by Aida Gómez-Robles, who discussed the pros and cons of this study. Some months later, Reardon and colleagues published a similar analysis, but on a huge sample. In her review, Aida Gómez-Robles pointed to endocasts as a potential source of additional information on intra-specific brain variation. Definitely a good point, and a valiant position to be presented in a mainstream journal on cognition. Endocasts and macroanatomy are issues which are often neglected in neuroscience. Nonetheless, two aspects must be taken into account. First, macroanatomy and morphology still hide many issues which suffer a dramatic lack of information, and that can reveal unexpected suprises. This is also true taking into account traditional neuroanatomy and, for example, in our last survey on human brain variation (on 265 individuals) the precuneus still stands as a major source of gross morphological human diversity. Second, although endocasts can’t provide a comprehensive information on brain biology, they can remarkably help to increase the sample size when dealing with primates and especially hominoids, because of the many collections available as dry or digital skulls. A recent study on the degree of endocranial metric variation in apes, humans, and hominids can be found here.

Renki

Psychogeny and phylogeny, a unique and illuminating perspective on the natural history of the human beast …

Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt [1928-2018]

Visuospatial behaviours

After the perspective paper on visuospatial cognition and human evolution, and the review on visuospatial integration and the fossil record, we have now published a review article on visuospatial behaviors in archaeology. Here, we introduce and discuss parietal cortex evolution, embodiment, tool use and tool making, wayfinding, and the association between physical, chronological, and social spaces. A main target of cognitive archaeology is to test whether modern human cognition is due to a specific prosthetic capacity that enhances the functional relationships between body and technology, offloading brain functions and outsourcing information process to the enviroment. Something similar happens to … spiders! This chapter is part of a book dedicated to the Evolution of Primate Social Cognition (Springer).

Newborn folding

Amazing study this one on neonate cortical folding! They analyzed almost 600 newborn brains with an automated method based on surface and curvature and, according to the results, the adult folding scheme is already expressed after birth. This means that most folding mechanisms act before birth. Taking into account that the brain then undergoes a dramatic increase in size, we can probably say that size-related effects may be important but indeed not determinant, for the final sulcal scheme. There could be allometric influences in brain folding but, if a neonate already displays the adult cortical pattern, this means that other early non-allometric factors are involved. Here a post on this study. And, a recent review by Van Essen and colleagues on brain development and evolution, addressing the issue of cortical folding.