Abstract
Over evolutionary time, vertebrate brains have expanded and become more structurally complex, with the forebrain having the largest increase in relative volume and cortical folding. There are different rationales about how to compare brains across species; however, brain size is much simpler to compare than neuronal structure or density. Because brains are incredibly expensive to develop and maintain, several adaptive explanations have been developed to explain the evolutionary increase in vertebrate brain size. The two main hypotheses are the ecological, which is premised on large brains helping animals solve problems such as adapting to instability or novelty in their environment, and the social brain, which on the other hand focuses on the cognitive burden of managing a complex social environment. However, the two hypotheses should not be seen as mutually exclusive. The role of social and environmental factors in the large increase in hominid brains is still open to speculation.
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