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Cited by 276Primate Behavior and EcologyEvolution and Paleontology StudiesComparative Animal Anatomy Studies

Scalable architecture in mammalian brains

Clark, Damon A., Mitra, Partha P., Wang, Samuel S.-H.·2001·Nature
DOI 10.1038/35075564
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Abstract

Comparison of mammalian brain parts has often focused on differences in absolute size, revealing only a general tendency for all parts to grow together. Attempts to find size-independent effects using body weight as a reference variable obscure size relationships owing to independent variation of body size and give phylogenies of questionable significance. Here we use the brain itself as a size reference to define the cerebrotype, a species-by-species measure of brain composition. With this measure, across many mammalian taxa the cerebellum occupies a constant fraction of the total brain volume (0.13 +/- 0.02), arguing against the hypothesis that the cerebellum acts as a computational engine principally serving the neocortex. Mammalian taxa can be well separated by cerebrotype, thus allowing the use of quantitative neuroanatomical data to test evolutionary relationships. Primate cerebrotypes have progressively shifted and neocortical volume fractions have become successively larger in lemurs and lorises, New World monkeys, Old World monkeys, and hominoids, lending support to the idea that primate brain architecture has been driven by directed selection pressure. At the same time, absolute brain size can vary over 100-fold within a taxon, while maintaining a relatively uniform cerebrotype. Brains therefore constitute a scalable architecture.

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Crossref · 10.1038/35075564

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29 of 29 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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  • The relative proportion of the telencephalon in birds resembles that reported for primates (primates, 74 ± 5%; songbirds, 72 ± 6%; parrots, 78 ± 5%).

    “the relative proportion of the telencephalon resembles that reported for primates (42) (primates, 74 ± 5%; songbirds, 72 ± 6%; parrots, 78 ± 5%)”

    From Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain (2016) · cites this paper as [42]

  • Ratio measures of relative brain structure size used commonly in comparative studies conflate allometric scaling with selection on specific brain regions.

    “One implication is that the ratio measures of relative brain structure size used commonly in comparative studies, such as neocortex ratio [8], ‘executive’ brain ratio [7,10,11] and ‘cerebrotype’ [50] conflate allometric scaling with selection on specific brain regions.”

    From Embodied cognitive evolution and the cerebellum (2012) · cites this paper as [50]

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Authors
Clark, D. A., Mitra, P. P., & Wang, S. S.-H.
Affiliations
Princeton University (US)
Corresponding author
Wang, Samuel S.-H.
ORCID
Venue
Nature
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2001-05-10
Volume
411
Issue
6834
Pages
189-193
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
DOI
10.1038/35075564
OpenAlex
W2049872588
Cited by
276
References
29
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 25
FWCI
21.35
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Institutional Repository (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Urology › Comparative Animal Anatomy Studies
Keywords
brain composition, cerebellum, neocortex, primate brain evolution, brain scaling, phylogenetic relationships
MeSH terms
Algorithms, Animals, Body Constitution, Brain, Cerebellum, Biological Evolution, Humans, Phylogeny, Primates, Reference Values, Species Specificity, Neocortex, Databases as Topic

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