A new study conducted at University of Adelaide shows that intelligence in humans can be estimated by the size of the holes in the skull through which the arteries pass. The study Published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
"It is possible to estimate brain metabolic rate from the size of the arteries that supply the brain with blood," said lead author Roger Seymour in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide. "During the course of primate evolution, body size increased from small, tree-dwelling animals, through larger monkeys and finally the largest apes and humans," Seymour said.
A human brain contains nearly 100 billion nerve cells with connections measured in the trillions. If an artery passes through a bone, then simply measuring the size of the hole can indicate the blood flow rate and in turn the metabolic rate of the organ inside.
"Our analysis showed that on one hand, brain size increased with body size similarly in the two groups. On the other hand, blood flow rate in relation to brain size was very different. The relative blood flow rate increased much faster in primates than in marsupials," Seymour said.
"The difference between primates and other mammals lies not in the size of the brain, but in its relative metabolic rate. High metabolic rate correlates with the evolution of greater cognitive ability and complex social behavior among primates," Seymour said
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