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Not all animals have neurons; Trichoplax and sponges lack nerve cells altogether. Neurons may be packed to form structures such as the brain of vertebrates or the neural ganglions of insects. The number of neurons and their relative abundance in different parts of the brain is a determinant of neural function and, consequently, of behavior.
Von Economo neurons are relatively large cells that may allow rapid communication across the relatively large brains of great apes, elephants, and cetaceans. Although rare in comparison to other neurons, von Economo neurons are abundant, and comparatively large, in humans; they are however three times as abundant in cetaceans. [3] [10]
The human brain has evolved around the metabolic, environmental, and social needs that the species has dealt with throughout its existence. As hominid species evolved with increased brain size and processing power, the overall metabolic need increased. Compared to chimpanzees, humans consume more calories from animals than from plants.
The evolutionary history of the human brain shows primarily a gradually bigger brain relative to body size during the evolutionary path from early primates to hominins and finally to Homo sapiens. This trend that has led to the present day human brain size indicates that there has been a 2-3 factor increase in size over the past 3 million years ...
The brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals.It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for special senses such as vision, hearing and olfaction.
Thus, large whales have very small brains compared to their weight, and small rodents like mice have a relatively large brain, giving a brain-to-body mass ratio similar to humans. [4] One explanation could be that as an animal's brain gets larger, the size of the neural cells remains the same, and more nerve cells will cause the brain to ...
However, even sponges, unicellular animals, and non-animals such as slime molds have cell-to-cell signalling mechanisms that are precursors to those of neurons. [9] In radially symmetric animals such as the jellyfish and hydra, the nervous system consists of a nerve net , a diffuse network of isolated cells. [ 10 ]
Brain of a human (left), compared to that of a black rhinoceros (center) and a common dolphin (right). Elephant brains also show a complexity similar to dolphin brains, and are also more convoluted than that of humans, [20] and with a cortex thicker than that of cetaceans. [21]