It’s one of the great paradoxes of evolution. Humans have demonstrated that having large brains are key to our evolutionary success, and yet such brains are extremely rare in other animals. Most get by on tiny brains, and don’t seem to miss the extra brain cells (neurons).
Why? The answer that most biologists have settled on is that large brains are costly in terms of the energy they require to run. And, given the way natural selection works, the benefits simply don’t exceed the costs.
But is it just a matter of size? Does the way our brains are laid out also affect their costs? A new study, published in Science Advances, has produced some intriguing answers.
