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Science 16 August 1985:
Vol. 229. no. 4714, pp. 668 - 671
DOI: 10.1126/science.229.4714.668
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Articles

Genetics of Growth Predict Patterns of Brain-Size Evolution

BRUCE RISKA 1 and WILLIAM R. ATCHLEY 1

1 Laboratory of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison 53706

Experimental evidence is presented supporting a developmental model that explains the genetic basis for brain and body size associations. Evolutionary change in body size causes correlated change in brain size because some genes affect both traits. The commonly observed correlation between brain and body size results from genetic variation in growth determinants affecting both traits simultaneously during fetal and early postnatal growth. Later growth reduces brain-body correlation because of changes in the underlying causal components of growth in each trait. Brain-body size evolution shows a different pattern at higher taxonomic levels from that seen within and between closely related species because body-size evolution among higher taxa occurs primarily by change in early portions of growth, which share more genetic growth determinants with brain size.

Submitted on October 5, 1984
Revised on January 22, 1985


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Quantitative Genetic Modeling of Variation in Human Brain Morphology.
W. F.C. Baare, H. E. Hulshoff Pol, D. I. Boomsma, D. Posthuma, E. J.C. de Geus, H. G. Schnack, N. E.M. van Haren, C. J. van Oel, and R. S. Kahn (2001)
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W. R. Atchley, R. Wei, and P. Crenshaw (2000)
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Comparing brains.
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Allometric Engineering: An Experimental Test of the Causes of Interpopulational Differences in Performance.
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Science 248, 1106-1109
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Taxonomic differences in the scaling of brain on body weight among mammals.
M. Pagel and P. Harvey (1989)
Science 244, 1589-1593
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