Biology 1BL Term Paper
Evolution of the Human Brain
The human brain can approximately store 1.25 terabytes of information
and can do this through the on average 100,000,000,000 neurons it has, and about the
100,000,000 meters of interconnections of these neurons(Cherniak 2012). The driving
force behind the evolution of this complex structure seemed to be the ability to intake
and analyze information about the organisms’ environment(Finlay, Darlington, and
Nicastro 2001). It seems that more information available to the brain, and an increased
processing speed of that information, the more successful the organism would be at
reacting to an environmental challenge and survival(Hurculano 2009). In simple terms,
intelligence seems …show more content…
Even though there are other structures in the brain that were selected for
greater growth and complexity, it is noted that evolution has impacted the change in the
cerebral cortex physiology and morphology and in consequence has influenced
intelligence the most(Cherniak 2012).
Now that it is understood what evolved, looking at what led to the evolution is
just as important. Scientist theorize that the evolution of the brain was due to selective
pressures of the physical and/or social environment(Hurculano 2009). But if humans are
still under these pressures why would evolution stop? It seems to be that the capacity
of the brain to process information is a function of the topographical arrangements of
its neurons and the speed at which those signals can be sent and received. The more
folding, which allowed brains to be increasingly compact and efficient, along with an
an increase in organization of neurons had reached its limits. In other words, neural
pathways purpose are to process large amounts of information in a small amount of
time and due to the structure and format of these pathways, simply evolving a
Evolution of the Human Brain
The human brain can approximately store 1.25 terabytes of information
and can do this through the on average 100,000,000,000 neurons it has, and about the
100,000,000 meters of interconnections of these neurons(Cherniak 2012). The driving
force behind the evolution of this complex structure seemed to be the ability to intake
and analyze information about the organisms’ environment(Finlay, Darlington, and
Nicastro 2001). It seems that more information available to the brain, and an increased
processing speed of that information, the more successful the organism would be at
reacting to an environmental challenge and survival(Hurculano 2009). In simple terms,
intelligence seems …show more content…
Even though there are other structures in the brain that were selected for
greater growth and complexity, it is noted that evolution has impacted the change in the
cerebral cortex physiology and morphology and in consequence has influenced
intelligence the most(Cherniak 2012).
Now that it is understood what evolved, looking at what led to the evolution is
just as important. Scientist theorize that the evolution of the brain was due to selective
pressures of the physical and/or social environment(Hurculano 2009). But if humans are
still under these pressures why would evolution stop? It seems to be that the capacity
of the brain to process information is a function of the topographical arrangements of
its neurons and the speed at which those signals can be sent and received. The more
folding, which allowed brains to be increasingly compact and efficient, along with an
an increase in organization of neurons had reached its limits. In other words, neural
pathways purpose are to process large amounts of information in a small amount of
time and due to the structure and format of these pathways, simply evolving a