Rapid evolution of the cerebellum in humans and other great apes
Open accessAbstract
Humans' unique cognitive abilities are usually attributed to a greatly expanded neocortex, which has been described as "the crowning achievement of evolution and the biological substrate of human mental prowess". The human cerebellum, however, contains four times more neurons than the neocortex and is attracting increasing attention for its wide range of cognitive functions. Using a method for detecting evolutionary rate changes along the branches of phylogenetic trees, we show that the cerebellum underwent rapid size increase throughout the evolution of apes, including humans, expanding significantly faster than predicted by the change in neocortex size. As a result, humans and other apes deviated significantly from the general evolutionary trend for neocortex and cerebellum to change in tandem, having significantly larger cerebella relative to neocortex size than other anthropoid primates. These results suggest that cerebellar specialization was a far more important component of human brain evolution than hitherto recognized and that technical intelligence was likely to have been at least as important as social intelligence in human cognitive evolution. Given the role of the cerebellum in sensory-motor control and in learning complex action sequences, cerebellar specialization is likely to have underpinned the evolution of humans' advanced technological capacities, which in turn may have been a preadaptation for language.
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Both the basal ganglia and the cerebellum receive direct input from the motor cortex and are involved in the preparation, learning, and sensorimotor coordination of movements.
“because both brain structures receive direct input from the motor cortex and are involved in the preparation, learning, and sensorimotor coordination of movements.”
From Neandertal Introgression Sheds Light on Modern Human Endocranial Globularity (2019) · cites this paper as [9]
The paper’s summary (p. 3) describes the cerebellum’s role in sensory-motor control and learning complex action sequences. It does not establish that both the cerebellum and basal ganglia receive direct motor-cortex input or share all the stated movement-related roles. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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- Authors
- Barton, R. A., & Venditti, C.
- Affiliations
- Durham University (GB)
- University of Reading (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Barton, Robert A.
- Venditti, Chris
- Venue
- Current Biology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-10
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 20
- Pages
- 2440-2444
- ISSN
- 0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2079383201
- Cited by
- 291
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 37 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 35 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 24 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 9 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 27.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- erratum (2017-04-24)
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Current Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (acceptedVersion)
- CentAUR (University of Reading) (submittedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Leverhulme Trust
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Keywords
- cerebellum, human brain evolution, great apes, neocortex, cognitive evolution, technical intelligence, social intelligence, language evolution, anthropoid primates, sensorimotor control
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cerebellum, Humans, Phylogeny, Time Factors, Hominidae, Neocortex
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