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Displaying entries 61 through 75 of 84 found.

Life’s Cerebral Cognizance Becomes More Complex, Smarter, Informed, Proactive, Self-Aware

González-Forero, Mauricio. Evolutionary–developmental (evo-devo) dynamics of hominin brain size.. Nature Human Behavior. May, 2024. Since this subject has remained unresolved, a University of St. Andrews biologist draws upon mechanistic modeling to infer that some innate structural limits seem to be in formative effect on beyond selection alone.

  Brain size tripled in the human lineage over four million years, but why this occurred remains uncertain. To study what caused this brain expansion, I mathematically model the evolutionary and developmental (evo-devo) dynamics of hominin brain size. The model recovers (1) the evolution of brain and body sizes of seven hominin species starting from brain and body sizes of the australopithecine scale, (2) the evolution of the hominin brain–body allometry and (3) major patterns of human development and evolution. These findings show that the evolution of adaptive traits may not be primarily caused by selection but by developmental constraints that divert selection. (Excerpt)

Lapraz, Francois, et al. Brain bilateral asymmetry – insights from nematodes, zebrafish, and Drosophila. Trends in Neuroscience. 47/10, 2024. This October paper by Université Côté d'Azur, CNRS, France biopsychologists including Stéphane Noselli is a good example of mid 2020s abilities to ascertain and wholly fill in what nature seems to avail as a premier cognitive attribute. In regard, this asymmetrical facility with two dedicated functions has been known since the 1970s as the human hemispheres. Into the 21st century, the presence of this vital reciprocity has been identified across all Metazoan creatures from vertebrate primates all the way its quantified occurrence in invertebrate worms and insects, as this work attests. Thus after some 50 years this local to global neurobiology research project approaches an historic conclusion. As such, life’s entire, fittest, complementary intelligent edification could be well appreciated as truly in evidential existence on its phenomenal own.

The nervous system in bilaterian organisms displays a lateralized organization by way of asymmetrical neuronal circuits and brain functions. Although body asymmetry is understood, the asymmetry of the nervous system displays greater phenotypic, genetic, and evolutionary variability. In this review we explore the use of nematode, zebrafish, and Drosophila genetic models to investigate neuronal circuit asymmetry. We discuss recent discoveries in the context of body–brain concordance and highlight the distinct characteristics of nervous system asymmetry and its cognitive correlates.

To our knowledge, Drosophila H-neurons represent the only known arthropod directional asymmetrical circuit. Although many arthropod species exhibit lateralized behaviors, such as leg response in locusts, or asymmetrical contributions of hemispheres and cognitive functions in ants and bees, the neuronal substrates underlying these asymmetries remain to be fully elucidated. (11) The discovery that the lateralized activity of the Netrin pathway is crucial for H-neuron laterality in flies suggests a mechanism for circuit asymmetry in which a patterning dimension is added to a classical guidance pathway. (12)

Emergence of Asymmetry from an initially symmetrical state is a universal transition in Nature. Living organisms show striking asymmetries at all scales (molecular, cellular, tissular, organismal) and one of their fundamental features lies in their assembly from homochiral molecular components. Whether the macroscopic asymmetries of living systems are directly related to their molecular chirality remains an open question. We study Left-Right Asymmetry in Drosophila to characterize the molecular basis of laterality and address the origin, propagation and evolution of symmetry breaking. (Noselli website)

Rosslenbroich, Bernd, et al. Agency as an Inherent Property of Living Organisms. Biological Theory.. August, 2024. Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Morphology Centre, Witten/Herdecke University, Germany contribute a current, definitive explanation and endorsement of manifest evolutionary scales and degrees of personal, proactive liberties all the way to ourselves.

A central characteristic of living organisms is their intrinsic activity with regard to basic life processes and behavior in the environment. While some debate goes on, we contend that such agency is immanent in living organisms. In regard, we identify several organismic levels to capture different qualities that occur or transform during evolution. An example is an ontogenetic level of directed agency that includes preconceived goals. An enhanced physiological and behavioral autonomy then extends the evolutionary scope of self-generated, flexible actions and reactions.

Mithen, Stephen. The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved. New York: Basic Books, 2024. The author is a professor of early prehistory at the University of Reading with many academic articles and several books (search) such as  After the Ice and The Singing Neanderthals. This latest work proposes an iconic vocal origins hypothesis whereby rudimentary languages were mainly vocal and iconic in kind, rather than gestural, with symbol use emerging later on.

The emergence of language began with the apelike calls of our earliest hominid ancestors. Today, the world is home to thousands of complex expressions.   In his latest volume, renowned archaeologist Steven Mithen puts forward a novel account which synthesizes research across archaeology, psychology, linguistics, genetics, and neuroscience. A step-by-step explanation of how our human ancestors transitioned from grunts to words and grammar. He explores how language shaped our cognition and vice versa; how metaphor advanced Homo sapiens’ ability to formulate abstract concepts, develop agriculture, and shape the world.

Our Earthuman Ascent: A Major Evolutionary Transition in Twndividuality

Nikolic, Milos, et al. Scale invariance in early embryonic development.. arXiv:2312.17684. Ten Princeton and Peking University theorists including Eric Smith and William Bialek apply frontier techniques to study this iconic insect as another exemplary instance of a phenomenal, self-organized invariance, which can now be specifically traced to an independent generative source script.

The body plan of the fruit fly forms from the expression of just a few genes, which scales with the size of the embryo. Further, the information patterns provide can specify fractional, scaled or absolute positions. These observations suggest that the underlying genetic network exhibits scale invariance in a deeper mathematical sense. Taking this theoretic statement seriously requires that the network dynamics have a zero mode, which connects to many other observations on this system. (Excerpt)

Finally, recent experiments on mammalian pseudo-embryos suggest that scale invariance may be a more universal feature of genetic networks underlying developmental pattern formation (search Merle). In these self-organizing cellular populations, scale invariance emerges with boundaries that move as the aggregate grows. The existence of a zero mode in the regulatory network becomes even more attractive as a general mechanism for scaling. (10)

Powell, Nathaniel, et al. Common modular architecture across diverse cortical areas in early development.. PNAS. 121/11, 2024. By this mid year, Optical Imaging and Brain Sciences Medical Discovery Team, University of Minnesota, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies and Columbia University neuroscientists are able to discern and report the presence of recurrent patterns and processes that develop to engender our human cerebral endowment.

How the diversity of functional organization across brain areas emerges during development is unclear. By imaging spontaneous activity in both sensory and higher-order cortices, we find that a distributed, modular architecture with long-range correlations is a common feature of the developing cortex. This suggests that instead of specific specializations already in place, cortical areas that reflect diverse representations develop from an initially similar structure. These modular networks exhibit strong quantitative similarity across areas, suggesting that the same organizing principles operate throughout the early cortex. Our findings suggest a generic modular organization serves as a cortical substrate. (Abstract)

Zanchi, Paola, et al. Differences in spatiotemporal brain network dynamics of Montessori and traditionally schooled students.. npj Science of Learning. Vol. 9/Art. 45, 2024. Nine neuropsychologists at Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne, Switzerland contrasted the cerebral and cognitive effects of standard schooling with proactive Montessori methods by sophisticated imaging studies and found notable, advantageous differences.

• School experience affects academic and social-emotional outcomes, yet whether differences in pedagogical experience modulate underlying brain network development is still unknown. In this study, we compared the brain network dynamics of students with different pedagogical backgrounds. Specifically, we characterized brain activity at rest by combining both resting-state fMRI and diffusion-weighted structural imaging data of 87 4–18 years old students experiencing either the Montessori pedagogy (student-led, trial-and-error) or the traditional pedagogy (teacher-led, test-based). Montessori students showed higher functional integration and neural stability compared to traditional students. (Abstract)

Courellis, Hristos, et al. Abstract representations emerge in human hippocampal neurons during inference.. Nature. August 14, 2024. We enter this work by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CalTech, Columbia University, University of Toronto and New York State Psychiatric Institute neuroscientists for its findings and also to reflect that we Earth peoples may be inherently made and meant to serve as the universe’s way of achieving its own self-description and recognition.

Humans have a cognitive capacity to rapidly adapt to changing environments which draws on an ability to form abstract representations of regularities in the world to support generalization. How these representations are encoded in populations of neurons, how they emerge through learning and how they relate to behavior remains mostly unknown. Learning to perform inference by trial and error or through verbal instructions led to the formation of hippocampal representations with similar geometric properties. The observed relation between representationalfor complex cognition. (Excerpt)

One solution is to encode variables in an abstract format so they can be re-used in new situations to facilitate generalization and compositionality. Here we show that such an abstract representation emerged in the human hippocampus as a function of learning to perform inference. Inferential reasoning is thought to rely on cognitive maps, which have been observed in the hippocampus and underlie inferential reasoning in various complex spatial domains. Here we show that a cognitive map that organizes stimulus identity and latent context in an ordered manner emerges in the hippocampus. (8)

Earth Earns: An Open CoCreative Earthropocene to Astropocene PediaVerse

Scheffer, Martin, et al. Anticipating the global redistribution of people and property.. One Earth. 7/7, 2024. Eight environmental scholars in the Netherlands, the UK and USA, Sweden, Canada and China including Tim Lenton andy Gaia Vince proceed to acknowledge increasing climate changes which will drive population movements especially from already imperiled places. With this in mind, we would do well to prepare in advance with suitable infrastructures, resource allocation, social policies and so on.

Climate change will worsen conditions for people in the Global South, while conditions in large parts of the North will improve. Migration seems an effective adaptation strategy. However, making that a win-win for migrants and receiving communities requires revision of the food system, rules for mobility, and strategies for social integration.

One Earth is a Cell Press prime sustainability journal. It provides a home for high-quality research and perspectives that advance our ability to better understand and address today’s many challenges. We publish monthly thematic issues that aspire to break down barriers between the natural, social and applied sciences and the humanities, stimulate the cross-pollination of ideas, and encourage transformative research.

Gupta, Joyeeta, et al. A just world on a safe planet: Earth Commission report on boundaries, translations, and transformations.. Lancet Planetary Health.. September 11, 2024. In this premier British medical journal series, over 60 coauthors such as Laura Pereira and Johan Rockstrom present and discuss this major environmental document and its critical-condition recommendations.

The health of the planet and its people are at risk. The deterioration of the global commons that support life on Earth is imperils energy, food, and water insecurity, and increases the risk of disease, disaster, displacement, and conflict. In this Commission, we quantify safe and just Earth-system boundaries (ESBs) and assess minimum access to natural resources required for human dignity and escape from poverty. Collectively, these describe a safe and just corridor essential to sustainable and resilient human planetary wellness in the Anthropocene. We define eight ESBs for five domains—the biosphere (functional integrity and natural ecosystem area), climate, nutrient cycles (phosphorus and nitrogen), freshwater (surface and groundwater), and aerosols—to reduce degrading biophysical life-support systems and avoid tipping points.

Joyeeta Gupta is a Dutch environmental scientist who is professor of Environment and Development in the Global South at the University of Amsterdam, professor of Law and Policy in Water Resources and Environment at IHE Delft Institute for Water Education and co-chair of the Earth Commission, set up by Future Earth and supported by the Global Challenges Foundation.

Lancet Planetary Health is an interdisciplinary journal covering planetary health, the environment, sustainable development, and the SDGs, that highlights the work of those researchers committed to finding a path towards a better, more sustainable, and healthier future.

Ripple, William, et al. The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth.. Bioscience. October, 2024. Fourteen senior environmental scholars on three continents including Michael Mann, Naomi Oreskes and Johan Rockstrom provide a latest trenchant, critical condition report, as time runs out. Comprehensive sections such as Recent trends in planetary vital signs, Global greenhouse gases and temperature, Oceans and ice and Climate change as a social justice issue sound a clarion call.

Scheffer, Martin, et al. Scheffer, Martin, et al. Anticipating the global redistribution of people and property.. One Earth. 7/7, 2024. Eight environmental scholars in the Netherlands, the UK and USA, Sweden, Canada and China including Tim Lenton and Gaia Vince proceed to acknowledge increasing climate changes over a finite biosphere which will drive population movements especially from already imperiled places. With this in mind, we would do well to prepare in advance with suitable infrastructures, resource allocation, social policies and so on.