Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Neuroscience and Neurobiology

Darwin’s road not taken: white sclera, shared intentionality, niche construction, predator fear, teams and Homo origins

John Robert Skoyles

Published: 2023-11-04
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Evolution, Neuroscience and Neurobiology

Palaeoanthropologists have yet to pinpoint how Homo evolved from Australopithecus. I propose niche construction ending predator ambush and stalking attacks, white sclera, and ultrafast team cognition were key. Human white sclera allows the quick, distant detection of line-of-sight. This is unique. In other primates, predators eliminate conspicuous-eyed individuals. Consequently, nonhuman [...]

A toolkit for the dynamic study of air sacs in siamang and other elastic circular structures

Lara S. Burchardt, Yana van de Sande, Mounia Kehy, et al.

Published: 2023-10-15
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Neuroscience and Neurobiology

Biological structures are defined by rigid elements, such as bones, and elastic elements, like muscles and membranes. Computer vision advances have enabled automatic tracking of moving animal skeletal poses. Such developments provide insights into complex time-varying dynamics of biological motion. Conversely, the elastic soft-tissues of organisms, like the nose of elephant seals, or the buccal [...]

Remarks on an approach to study flocking phenomenon in animals

Francois Gerard

Published: 2023-02-12
Subjects: Animal Studies, Neuroscience and Neurobiology

In theoretical discussions of the potential effects of collective interactions in such biological systems, statistical physics principles and methodologies have been applied. In order to enhance their capacity for collective computation, it has been suggested that such collective systems should function close to a phase transition, specifically a (pseudo-)critical point. This paper will [...]

Experimental mosaic brain evolution improves main executive function abilities in the guppy

Zegni Triki, Stephanie Fong, Mirjam Amcoff, et al.

Published: 2022-09-22
Subjects: Behavioral Neurobiology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Life Sciences, Neuroscience and Neurobiology

Executive functions are a set of cognitive control processes required for optimizing goal- directed behaviour. Despite more than two centuries of research on executive functions, both in humans and nonhuman animal species, there is still a knowledge gap of what constitutes the mechanistic basis of evolutionary variation in executive function abilities. Here we show experimentally that changes in [...]

The promise of an evolutionary perspective of alcohol consumption

Hans Hofmann, Benjamin Clites, Jonathan Pierce

Published: 2022-08-24
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Neuroscience and Neurobiology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Life Sciences, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health

The urgent need for medical treatments of alcohol use disorders has motivated the search for novel molecular targets of alcohol response. Most studies exploit the strengths of lab animals without considering how these and other species may have adapted to respond to alcohol in an ecological context. Here, we provide an evolutionary perspective on the molecular and genetic underpinnings of alcohol [...]

Re-examining extreme sleep duration in bats: implications for sleep phylogeny, ecology and function

Christian David Harding, Yossi Yovel, Talya Hackett, et al.

Published: 2021-07-03
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Neuroscience and Neurobiology

Bats are quoted as sleeping for up to 20 hours a day, an example of extreme sleep duration amongst mammals. Given that duration is one of the primary metrics featured in comparative studies of sleep, it is important that determinations of species-specific sleep duration are well founded. Here, we summarise the evidence for the characterisation of bats as extreme sleepers and discuss whether it [...]

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