Brain Evolution News @BrainEvolutionN

Brain Evolution in the News tweeted for you! For events & opportunities in brain evolution research follow @EurNetBrainEvoR brainevolutionnews.blogspot.com Joined November 2011

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The Integrative Biology of Brain Evolution-TIBBE @TIBBE_EvolNeuro

a day ago

🤩 Join us for the next TIBBE seminar: Evolution of brain cell types. September 10, 2–3pm UTC This event brings together 2 outstanding evolutionary and developmental neuroscientists who will present their work, followed by a discussion with the audience crowdcast.io/c/evolution-of…

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Brain Evolution News @BrainEvolutionN

13 hours ago

The Minute Fossil That Redrew The Arthropod Map scienceblog.com/the-minute-fos…

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Brain Evolution News @BrainEvolutionN

3 days ago

Study provides first direct evidence that manual dexterity and brain evolution are connected phys.org/news/2025-08-e…

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Brain Evolution News @BrainEvolutionN

3 days ago

Rare seasonal brain shrinkage in shrews is driven by water loss, not cell death, MRI study reveals phys.org/news/2025-08-r…

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Durham University @durham_uni

2 weeks ago

A study co-authored by @howbrainsevolve of @AnthDurham1 gives new insight on how human hands and minds evolved together. 🧠The research is published in @CommsBio & was led by Dr Joanna Baker of @UniofReading 👉 brnw.ch/21wVcyc #DUresearch #DUinspire

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

Finally, here’s a second preprint, describing the method, if you are wondering how you could do fMRI and ultrasound lesions in fish, reptiles, or any other weird animal model! 16/14 biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

If you want to learn more, here is the preprint of this study! 15/14 biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

This goes to show that the brain is evolutionarily very plastic and that different structures can perform the same behaviors in different clades of vertebrates, in a striking case of convergent evolution. 14/14

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

So, the fact that the inferior lobe is a completely different structure (non homologous to the cerebral cortex) means that during evolution, a completely different structure was recruited to perform the same behavior in amniotes and in fish! 13/14

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

Well, in mammals, it is the cerebral cortex that controls behaviors like problem solving and goal-directed manipulation. In birds, it’s the equivalent of the cerebral cortex, the pallium. 12/14

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

So overall, it does seem that the inferior lobe is involved in goal-directed object manipulation, and potentially in problem solving in cichlid fish. But why does it matter, really? 11/14

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

We found that fish that had had the lesion in the inferior lobe were impaired in their box opening behaviors. They could still do it, but took much more time than before. And their technique was not as good as before (see first tweet). 10/14

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

Enter… high intensity focused ultrasounds (HIFU)! We used an MRI compatible ultrasound transducer to target the inferior lobe with HIFU, which burns the structure. MR images helped us with targeting, and we were able to damage the inferior lobe without any surgery! 9/14

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

To confirm those results, we performed a lesion of the inferior lobe. However, classical surgical methods are extremely difficult in fish, so we had to come up with a new way of doing lesions. 8/14

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

See this wonderful thread if you are interested in this previous study 7/14 x.com/BioTay/status/…

Tay @BioTay

2 years ago

See this wonderful thread if you are interested in this previous study 7/14 x.com/BioTay/status/…

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

In a previous article, we had discovered that the inferior lobe (IL) is enlarged in the tool using species of fish (left), suggesting it had a role in higher order cognition. This seems to be confirmed here, with a role in object manipulation/problem solving abilities. 6/14

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

What the brain activation data shows is that it is the inferior lobe, a structure that is only found in fish (it doesn’t exist in mammals !) that drives this behavior. It's highlighted in purple in this figure. 5/14

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

...so that manganese accumulates in activated neurons, and then you anesthetize the animal and scan them. We used the highest field preclinical magnet available today, a 17.2 Tesla system! (your hospital has a 3T at most). Truly a beast. 4/14

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Pierre Estienne 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @p_estienne

3 months ago

Next, we performed Manganese Enhanced MRI (MEMRI), which uses manganese as a contrast agent to identify activated brain areas. It works like this: you inject manganese into the animal, have it perform the behavior (here, the box opening problem) as much as possible... 3/14