My major is Neuroscience – which is the studies the structure and functioning of the nervous system. It understands evolution and human variability as an insight to how/why our neurological structures are the way they are now and what it took to get there, such as how our brains have evolved hand in hand with our abilities – such as evolutions in our smell and language processes. As we have evolved overtime, certain senses have diminished (like our sense of smell) and others have enhanced (like our diversity in our language abilities). This has not only affected us biologically but culturally as well.
There is a field of study within neuroscience that studies just that – Evolutionary Neuroscience. Evolutionary Neuroscience looks at neuroanatomy and its functioning/emergent properties to look at its evolution. While exploring this field I came across an interesting research article that coincided with this prompt and with this class, “Evolutionary neuroscience of cumulative culture1.” This article explores the complexity and uniqueness of human culture, how we have evolved and developed to a place where no other species has even come close to. With the use of archeological evidence, they saw a trend in the advancements of tools and brain expansion. With enhancements seen in the tool used during observed time periods an increasing demand on certain brain processes (such as “visual, motor and attentional systems1”) was seen as well. And the evolution of our language abilities was understood to contribute to us being social beings – relying on others to learn, support through collaboration with others, and etc.
The lectures this week made me see that there are many ways to observe evolution through many techniques. Such as in the Richard III – The DNA Analysis and Conclusion video2, they had to find and observe the skeleton (finding scoliosis and the age of the skeletal remains) as well as amplifying its DNA and hunting down descendants of Richard III who would be able to give matching DNA results – which there were able to do, making scientists 99.99% sure that the skeleton is indeed Richard III’s. I also learned how common mutations are when replicating, previous to what I had thought, being that 99% of DNA is noncoding and 1% being protein coding. And because of that, mutations that do not affect the body (in the 99%) are just “neutral.” These lectures stressed the idea of mutations being the sources of variation and that it is these mutations that allow us to evolve pass down certain genes and/or evolve – such as sickle cell anemia in malaria-infested environments or Apo – AIM that redistributes/transports of lipids (helps with decreasing cholesterol levels). But these lectures also showed me how delicate that 1% of DNA (for protein-coding) can be when in the presence of mutations. Mutations such as substitutions, deletions, and duplications can affect the entire translation of protein(s) by affecting a small portion of a codon(s). These “small” changes can end up being a huge/detrimental to those functioning of the individual – in their genotype or phenotype (Hox genes).
Work cited
1: Stout, Dietrich, and Erin E. Hecht. “Evolutionary Neuroscience of Cumulative Culture.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 114, no. 30, 2017, pp. 7861–7868., doi:10.1073/pnas.1620738114.