Brain heat dissipation patterns in modern humans, fossil hominids and great apes: A comparative study

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Event Abstract Back to Event Brain heat dissipation patterns in modern humans, fossil hominids and great apes: A comparative study José Manuel De La Cuétara1*, Fabio Musso2 and Emiliano Bruner1 1 Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana, Spain 2 Universidad de Burgos, Spain Maintaining a constant temperature of the brain is a critical issue as slight variations in cerebral temperature may cause irreversible neural damage or even cause death of the individual. From an evolutionary perspective, when compared with other primates the human brain is not only bigger but it also consumes a larger amount of energy. Since brain size is constrained by the ability of an organism to efficiently remove the heat produced by neural metabolism, it has been proposed that brain size increase in humans was possible due to the coevolution of a complex vascular system able to efficiently dissipate heat. Searching for morphological correlates of brain metabolism, we performed numerical simulations to describe and to quantify the heat dissipation patterns within the brain volume as a function of the endocranial geometry in a comparative dataset of living and extinct hominoids. Our results show that brain size relates to general differences in the heat dissipation patterns among species, while thermic mapping evidence discrete differences localized on the parietal lobes, the temporal lobes and the motor cortex. Great apes display relatively high thermic values along this regions, with gorillas showing larger thermal loads than orangutans or chimpanzees. Australopithecines differ from great apes in showing lower loads at the frontal and parietal regions as the result of having taller brains. Extinct humans show a thermic gradient with low temperatures at the temporal lobes and higher values at the fronto-parietal surface related to their wider and flattened brains, while in modern humans this gradient is attenuated by relatively lower thermal loads at the parietal lobes, this being associated with parietal bulging and a more globular brain. Keywords: brain evolution, hominoids, thermoregulation References Bertolizio G, Mason L, Bissonnette B. 2011. Brain temperature: heat production, elimination and clinical relevance. Pediat Anesth 21: 347-358. Bruner E, Mantini S, Musso F, de la Cuétara JM, Ripani M, Sherkat S. 2011. The evolution of the meningeal vascular system in the human genus: From brain shape to thermoregulation. Am J Hum Biol 23: 35-43. Falk D. 2007. Constraints on brain size: the radiator hypothesis. In: The evolution of primate nervous systems (eds. Preuss T.M. and Kaas J.H.). Oxford: Academic Press, pp 347-354 Leonard WR, Robertson ML. 1992. Nutritional requirements and human evolution: A bioenergetics model. Am J Phys Anth 4:179-195. Keywords: computational neuroscience, thermoregulation, hominoids, brain evolution, cerebral temperature Conference: 5th INCF Congress of Neuroinformatics, Munich, Germany, 10 Sep - 12 Sep, 2012. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Neuroinformatics Citation: De La Cuétara J, Musso F and Bruner E (2014). Brain heat dissipation patterns in modern humans, fossil hominids and great apes: A comparative study. Front. Neuroinform. Conference Abstract: 5th INCF Congress of Neuroinformatics. doi: 10.3389/conf.fninf.2014.08.00054 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 21 Mar 2013; Published Online: 27 Feb 2014. * Correspondence: Dr. José Manuel De La Cuétara, Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana, Burgos, Spain, josemanuel.delacuetara@cenieh.es Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers José Manuel De La Cuétara Fabio Musso Emiliano Bruner Google José Manuel De La Cuétara Fabio Musso Emiliano Bruner Google Scholar José Manuel De La Cuétara Fabio Musso Emiliano Bruner PubMed José Manuel De La Cuétara Fabio Musso Emiliano Bruner Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.