From Newsgroup: sci.anthropology.paleo
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-025-07505-1
Abstract
Although intense research effort is seeking
to address which brain areas fire and connect
to each other to produce complex behaviors in
a few living primates, little is known about
their evolution, and which brain areas or
facets of cognition were favored by natural
selection. By developing statistical tools
to study the evolution of the brain cortex at
the fine scale, we found that rapid cortical
expansion in the prefrontal region took place
early on during the evolution of primates. In
anthropoids, fast-expanding cortical areas
extended to the posterior parietal cortex. In
Homo, further expansion affected the medial
temporal lobe and the posteroinferior region
of the parietal lobe. Collectively, the
fast-expanding cortical areas in anthropoids
are known to form a brain network producing
mind reading abilities and other higher-order
cognitive functions. These results indicate
that pursuing complex cognition drove the
evolution of Primate brains.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2