An evolutionary history of the human brain, in 7 minutes | Lisa Feldman Barrett
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- čas přidán 11. 06. 2023
- Plato and Carl Sagan were wrong about the human brain, says a top neuroscientist.
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Plato famously described the human psyche as two horses and a charioteer: one horse represented instincts, the other represented emotions, and the charioteer was the rational mind that controlled them. Astronomer Carl Sagan continued this idea of a three-layer "triune brain" in his 1977 book The Dragons of Eden.
But leading neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett challenges this idea of the brain evolving in three layers, instead revealing a common brain plan shared by all mammals and vertebrates. The development of sensory systems led to the emergence of the brain, and hunting and predation may have initiated an arms race to become more efficient and powerful predators.
Despite advances in neuroscience and genetics, the question of why the brain evolved remains elusive. But Feldman Barrett's fascinating exploration of the brain's evolution offers insights into the most important functions of this complex organ, and invites us to think more deeply about the origins of our own intelligence.
Read the full video transcript: the-evolution-of-the-human-brain
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nice try lizard people
What? 😂
Lol
Take that Mark Zuckerberg!
😂
😂😂
For someone who has Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (chronic fatigue syndrome), there is an intense, first hand knowledge of metabolic efficiency and how it effects every second of our lives.
Everyone experiences it in different ways but from what I've experienced, it's like having difficulty doing 2+ things at once at the risk of burning out my internal "battery". Sitting up while eating and being able to hold a conversation is now impossible. Sitting up, which uses your muscles and balance systems is an action, coordinating your hands to bring the food to your mouth is another, digesting is another and being able to string words together to verbalize is another.
The brain takes up so much energy so the power needed for other parts of the body isn't there when trying to do things simultaneously. Digesting food then takes energy away from the brain so I need to lay down in silence. When I try to talk, it comes out gibberish like I'm having a stroke. Once I'm done digesting my food, my speech comes back.
Before getting sick, I didn't even think about how so many things in the body need to be coordinated at every moment to allow us to be functional.
It's truly a miracle how many reactions and mechanisms must work perfectly just for simple movements. This is something that should never be taken for granted!
Hope you get better brother. Hope you also have some metabolities left after spelling out "Myalgic Encephalomyelitis' 😁
What are the things that help you to become a bit more active? Meditating techniques?
Not able to speak but having thought processes as before the illness?
I Wish you Happy thoughts.
I have POTS and MCAS, and I just push myself through many daily activities because I got so used to chronic pain that I don't realise others don't experience it constantly. I've been trying to compensate with exercise, but it's a 50%-50% deal. sometimes I might feel better, and sometimes exercise intolerance kicks in. it often gives me brain fog is not a psychological phenomenon, as many would think - it's now believed to stem from brain biochemistry. since my dysautonomia onset (thanks, fluoroquinolone), it's been hard to sit up for prolonged periods of time. I partially know what you mean. hugs your way from a fellow spoonie.
The brain is a complex organ, I consider it a gift.
Yet most of the time, people tend not to use it well.
Having a functioning brain is a gift and a miracle
You are the only good person
and yet people think the brain just formed by accident, and had no maker.
Brains are receivers. The more complex, the more frequencies it can receive. But humans are trained to ignore most of them.
Looking at the internet, it certainly seems that way: you are constantly bombarded with frustrating people and silly conflicts. Yet on the other hand--billions of people manage to get out of bed every day, navigate a complex world, procure food and the necessities of life, have and raise children, even use technology our ancestors couldn't have dreamed of. Our brains must be good for something--even if it's being frustrated at noticing how other people should be using theirs better!
I always thought it was just a metaphor. I never thought to think that some people took it seriously.
But even as a metaphor it's just plain wrong 😢
I thought that it evolved in the first quadrupeds...😢
@@Littleprinceleon the myth of the lizard brain lol... I dug the rest, though. Cheers ✌🏽🌻
As a young researcher, this channel is basically my lit review short cuts.
kinda like ''Clipped Notes"?
I've always learned it as "Reptilian Brain". "Lizard Brain" is something I've learned from media.
Many primitive organisms have sensory organs (cells) that determine light, contact, temperature, pH, salinity, nutrients, etc. Even single cells (paramecium, euglena amoeba) have such sensors. The next step, like amphioxus and jellyfish, was a “nerve net” capable of taking that information and automatically directing movement toward or away from good or bad conditions, capturing prey, and feeding. The next step was forming memories. That is where “brains” began to evolve. Aplysia (sea slug) for example, “habituates” to repeated stimuli, a primitive adaptive response. But the reason we eat plants and not vice-versa is that we remember information and use it to PLAN responses rather than reflexively responding. The processing required to compare sensory input to memories and manipulate ideas to make plans requires tremendous connectivity between brain regions dedicated to different types of information, as well as a “central planner” communicating between most other regions to coordinate responses. Memory is the key because we cannot consider alternative responses without it.
Why did human brains evolve beyond the necessity for survival. when most organisms haven't?
Most organisms haven’t yet*
The statement that mammals and reptiles evolved from fish is not entirely accurate.
Both mammals and reptiles evolved from Reptiliomorpha - or if you want "proto-reptile".
Very interesting! Thank you for the explanations, they are all new knowledge for me.
That was a long teleologic answer, which is quite ironic since she denounces a scientifc reflex to turning to teologic answers…
followed by a slight overuse of the word teleology ... sciences doesn't make much sense, when you strip it of the capacity to explain.
libs always do exactly the same thing they preach against. fact.
Interesting insight by Plato regarding the function (regardless of the structure) of the human mind and brain.👍
Great video! Both the content and shooting/editing. Very professional and informative. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it!
She started by saying how energy expensive our brains are and finished with how important metabolic efficiency is...
a Professor of Psychology explains aspects of brain evolution
more understandable than the biologists.
Much obliged.
The ability of the human brain
to store and recall memories is truly amazing!
Memories can evoke powerful emotions
and influence our
behavior.)
Maybe that's why I have not a really effective memory and with low capacity 😢
@@Littleprinceleon The process of remembering and forgetting is a natural part of our cognitive function. You're doing just fine, just like everyone else )))) and the capacity is normal!!!🧠🧠👍
Considering we evolved from primates... "the only animal that has a lizard brain-is a lizard."
Yuhhhh. 😅
"Lizard" is just shorthand for "primitive". I wouldn't worry about it too much or take it too seriously.
I think it was Neil or maybe Hitch who said why questions are really how questions. For example, there is no answer to a question like why are we here. But how? Now that’s got answers.
it's a simulation...
What is up with the annoying music overwhelming the speaker?
Understanding is the instrutic. Emotion is the other part. Learning in far from you by media
Yours
Shankar P
mesaage for The Well staff: Please include a reference with any shorts so we can follow up if it grabs us. Your current style makes your shorts functionally anonymous. At least a name. Maybe a pointer to a longer youtube. Aaaaargh.
It is in the description, which you should be able to see by clicking the dots in the top right and selecting 'description' on mobile. Does this not work for you? Or is this just not clear enough and it would be better to include more in the title?
@@The-Well OK now I see it, thanks. Yes, something more obvious would helpful. Either in the title or briefly on screen at some point.
Brains are receivers. The more complex, the more frequencies it can receive. But humans are trained to ignore most of them.
Receivers? What?? AI is based on brain cells. It is not receiving anything, it is computing
Brains are also like internet browsers with search-assist turned on. When presented with sensory input they respond as a browser would searching our memories - even if only tacitly - looking for "something" to make sense of what one experiences.
p.s. - this coincidentally is what is behind all the "UFO's" nonsense. People having been inundated with narratives about UFOs/aliens via our largely entertainment-based culture - hence _"priming"_ in neuroscience speak - subsequently are predisposed to associating otherwise unexplainable phenomenon as the same. Hollywood "planted the seed" in our imagination and confirmation bias sometimes takes over to lead these individuals to such conclusions. 🤷
As the skull cavity increased it needed to be filled. Rather than invent a completely new but oh so thin structure, it was evolutionarily more economical to make fatter neurons.
Why you use weird witch units such as pounds instead of standard meters in USA?
basically the brain more likely evolved to efficiently coordinate the sense and motor functions of the body, minimizing energy loss and maximize chance of reproduction, even if the brain consumes most of the energy of the body.
but it doesn't do a very good job of keeping you outta trouble...
Why the very loud background music?
Predatory behaviour seems to be almost as old as life itself - single-celled organisms prey on each other... This makes suspect the proposed "best guess" for brain development in this talk. At least it might indicate that the evolutionary "pressure" for brain development would then be much earlier in the evolutionary history.
The teleological "why things develop" studies are very important, but have to be tested/modelled to identify if pure mechanistic structural and dynamical probabilities allow any novelty to persist - structurally and dynamically proven to be an advantage in the sense that it has higher probabilities to reproduce and persist with only beneficial random modifications - Otherwise the existence of those structures cannot be ascribed to the actual mechanisms that caused it.
Are they doing those structural and dynamic probability analysis in their studies or are they just assuming higher probabilities because they observe the structure exist or existed, and they have a viable teleology or evolutionary pressure narrative? That is not a correct scientific approach and will lead to wrong conclusions about the underlying mechanisms that caused the evolution that is observed. Without that analysis, you will not be answering the question of why the probabilities are higher, because mechanistically and dynamically those probabilities might in fact be much lower from any previous ancestor in any possible environment.
It will cause the same kind of failure as the lizard brain hypothesis... it is dangerous to our own understanding and how we act on our understanding.
Sensory systems, called taxis, are far more remarkable beyond humans and wonder if the brain and its level of consciousness would make sensory awareness, beyond what we have, intolerable-- never able to get enough restorative sleep, etc.
If we were fine with a few minutes of sleep, our taxis consciousness may be far greater than the basic taxis survival brain.
An aside, it irked to hear that she has no clue from where the oldest part of the human brain is derived/shared. We clearly share most of our brain evolution with mammals...
Stops youtubing and gets out of bed - “I’m gonna find mate and go produce offspring”
I think her explanations contain just as many simplifications as the "lizard brain" concept.
Good info, but we definitely have primitive functions running in the background. That's what people mean when they say "lizard brain".
Exactly
Yeah man how the fuck this woman didn't realize we use it to refer to that. It's like big bang, no explosives involved in that
All of you are wrong and need to research the triune brain theory-- it literally claims what she said. It wasn't preposed as a metaphor, it was proposed as a scientific fact based on incorrect reasoning.
So we evolved the brain(animals), becouse at some point one organism ate another one - and that lead to arms race between different organism to develop limbs, eyes, ears, claws etc. To be able to hunt or escape in a more efficient way than your competitor. And all the organs and limbs needed to be coordinated in an efficient way - hence the brain.
This is what I understand from this video.
_"Predators"_ by definition must exhibit = _"problem-solving intelligence."_ We however are not merely predators = we are _"omnivores"_ as well. So man having access to a varied diet which supplies our bodies with a high nutritional content allows for that body to develop a higher level of functioning and subsequent cognition.
As far as "the arms race". We are predatory towards other species - while some other species are predatory towards us. Thus we were forced to constantly evolve our senses and thinking so as to survive. You can see this on a "micro" level with microorganisms per _"The Red Queen Hypothesis."_ Viruses battle against bacteria - who battle against fungi over resources to sustain themselves resulting in a continual evolution of new traits amongst themselves and sometimes new species arising.
An example would be Penicillin. We developed it from mold - it representing a novel enzyme developed by fungi as a way to destroy bacteria which also inhabit some "food source" they are all trying to consume. The more we are forced to use our brains towards some end = the more we subsequently learn - which can foster increased cognition and brain development as new neural pathways are formed and our brains draw more upon our "metabolic gas tank" derived from what we consume.
Even that is a story.
Guts!
So according to this theory Cannibalism gonna way to have more bigger brain.
That explains why humans are so prone to extortion blindness.
"That's what makes it look like a mouse doesn't have a very big cerebral cortex." ? Is this meant to imply that in reality a mouse does have a big cerebral cortex? I don't think so. The whole thing about "the length of time" needs to be explained a bit more. We humans do have a very big cerebral cortex relative to the rest of our brains (edit: for better or for worse). It isn't just what it "looks like".
It’s not that “you don’t have enough energy”, it’s that you do not have sufficient “order”
to do the job!
you're fire in a good way.
the ending I think thats obsolete
Turn the music wayyyy down
Drekavac, serbian mythical creature was the first animal on planet and all other animals developed from it.
"mythical"
Seems you're 1 driver short of a full chariot. XD
Sure thing, and Kosovo is the rightful territory of Mozambique.
Layer 4 progress
Layer 4 is AI
❤❤❤❤❤
If i was normal, i might have 3 common man brains. My IQ would have been around 160, almost equal to Einstein.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
My brain see a good video about himself!
Good brain!
Word of the day. TELEOLOGY
There is teleology and it's directed towards complexity.
What LFB is saying about emotions and brain is as important as what Copernicus said about universe. Earth is not at the center of the universe.
Emotions don't happen to us, they are built by our brains.
what do you mean by emotions not happening to us?
Faithfully in E-science
Big budgets are one which caters big budgets😂😂
Sentient stomach-on-a-stick.
Blindly wandering a universe we can never hope to comprehend.
Sounds about right.
The brain monitors body organs on which its life and functioning depend.
Can i just call it a fish brain? Haven't finished the video yet, maybe she'll say it.
She ended with (roughly) the Tooby and Cosmides view....and there may not be a 'reptile brain', but I think it's the consensus view that different parts of the brain evolved at different times. Also, I think that Feldman Barrett is an emotion theorist with a constructivist slant
, not a neuroscientist.
not everybody needs to be told shit like this (no lizard brain in mammals), but apparently the posters do. Fun fact: in 2023 40% of the planetary population has a tertiary education.
that's only the ones who made it past 3rd grade....
Fish ?
How did animals survive until one day they decided to hunt other animals? Were they long fasting? Or Herbivores?
This means every carnivores were once a herbivores.
Still this explanation is not satisfactory as a fact.
She spoke about this after the 6 minute mark.
Life is competition over resources; conciousness is competition over life. Also known as hunting. I like this explanation better than any other
Resource scarcity probably, made the need for eating other life forms to survive, the ones who did reproduced and killing was heritaged
@@Robinson8491 consciousness being competition over life is incredibly reductive
It doesn’t make sense. She explained it like animals ate other animals and all of the sudden brains popped up. Brains would have to develop in small steps from DNA mutation and impart some advantage. Perhaps it was moving toward food sources or avoiding harmful stimuli until it was sufficient to start actually hunting animals. Her explanation was just lazy and gave no insight at all
Not true, there's no need to appeal to a teleological explanation when asking why something evolved. One need only refer to causality.
I gotta get 😊an eye ear nose and fin doctor.
The way she says that our ultimate purpose is solely to reproduce is a bit unsettling…
suppose you had 15 billion years to kill. what would you do besides eat, sleep and f#@$.
Caution: Neuroscientist with blinders on professing by extrapolation based on her particular training bias. I advise taking Lisa's discussions with a proverbial grain of salt. A little too much mPFC "self" activation resting precariously on that "I'm a scientist" agency. I'm sure we'd find much common ground from which to sort it out if she were inclined.
I was getting tired of people using this “lizard brain” cope to excuse terrible behavior.
Intelligent aliens will be predators 😬
Just believe what the Bhagvan says in the Gita or what Einstein said - there is a huge Superpowerful Creator! Every little species & the minutest of parts are created by that Superpowerful force we call God!
there's 2,400 diff religions, which god?
Actually the most important task is to stay alive and survive, reproduction is secondary until it is time to mate.
You lost me at "lizards and mammals are on separate branches".
Wrong.
"All terrestrial vertebrates are therefore classified as ‘tetrapods’ and all tetrapods except amphibians as ‘reptiliomorphs’, including therefore birds and mammals."
Saying we are on separate branches is like saying "cousin Bob is on a different branch".
isn't that a bit like saying all organic creatures are on the same branch? where do you draw the line?
@@JustWojtek when we are all classified as "reptiliomorphs", that's where you draw the line.
"lizard brain" is just shorthand for the brain which was developed at a certain point in time. Directly tying it to LITERAL LIZARDS is nieve and idiotic.
Your cousin Bob IS on a different branch.
@@churly9717 no shit, but we're both from the same lineage.
Against. Lizard brain is short hand, it doesn't literally mean the brain of a lizard.
That's my point. It's a red herring to bring up lineage. We have a common ancestor. That ancestor was a reptile. We don't stop being reptiles because lizards went one way and we went the other.
But lizards ended up not changing in the brain department, we did
i came from a sea squirt...
You are so smart honey. America wants to rule the world, right?
I feel like this woman was in a rush. She’s like, I’ll give you guys 30 minutes to record this video, and then I have to go.
I know she had some things to return at Bloomingdales… which was only 2 blocks away. The one on 3rd Ave.
That reptiles and mammals developed independently from fish as claimed in the introduction is so wrong that I guess the rest of the video has to be taken with a level of skepticism.
This neither effectively refutes the triune brain nor gives any real information about brain evolution. What she says is less useful than the things she claims are illusions created by the brain or its up to her to demonstrate their utility. I will be waiting. Maybe if she can do that I will be able to figure out what she means by how it works.
You mean that a neuro-scientist can’t explain everything to your satisfaction in 7 minutes??? However, it is much too simplistic to state that the only job humans have is to produce offspring. The most important job of humans is to produce civilization!
@@geoffreyrothwell2707 No I mean that neuro-science has yet to produce a useful result. One that informs evidence based psychological tx and measurably reduces symptoms of depression or anxiety or addiction - for instance. Maybe let us actually treat narcissism. Help people make more money, have more stable relationships. Or is useful in some other concrete way. Without that we lack final validation that the readouts mean what neuro-science says it means. As far as I can tell Neuro-science has not shown they have a useful application from monitoring the bioactivity of the brain. So I remain unconvinced they have any idea what they are measuring means. I don't have to understand it but how does it help?
By saying lizard brain we do not fuckin mean lizard. It means that it is evolved before the seperation of mammals.
Then it's not brain because lizard brain is diffe from us
an animal deliberately eating other animal, made brain evolve, is just trippy, i am more inclined to believe that we are pre-destined.
It’s more comfortable, sure. But is there evidence? If you lack hard evidence then you should question it. Actually, question everything, always(but throw a bone to the evidence).
the future is history..
That is a theory only.
We could theorise that eating plants made our brains grow.🌱
Mark Zuckerberg
Well of course, he is a lizard afterall.
4:15, just like sniffy joe biden!
if one believes in evolution, the question of WHY is irrelevant, cause evolution has no purpose no goal to meaning, it just happened. i don't think evolution happened, i think there was intelligent maker, especially looking at the intricacy of the brain.
"Evolution by natural selection" is a story not science. Strictly speaking, science is a method or at least implies consistency of method. :)
Natural selection is a consistent method, it's just not a method of conscious choice but a method of environmental circumstance. Making a snowflake requires a "consistent method" but I wouldn't consider it science, unless weather itself is a scientist.
not mutually equivalent
@@avonsternen6034 "Evolution by natural selection" is an incredibly consistent method, so much so that you can shape a species evolution based on the environments, food sources, stimuli etc. that they come in contact with. Nothing survives in a desert except for desert adapted life. That's an indisputable level of consistency that's shaped all life across billions of years.
Either you don't know what a process is, you don't know what consistent means, or you don't know what natural selection is. It seems being willfully dumb has been a successful, *consistent method* for you this far. Either way, your ignorance is your own responsibility moving forward.
Reasonable story
Well, this is crap! Try catching a cockroach with almost no brian. Or a fly.
I'm gay, so I failed at my ultimate job hahaha.
Evolution is God's creation.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻