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Brain size and neuron numbers drive differences in yawn duration across mammals and birds
Recent studies indicate that yawning evolved as a brain cooling mechanism. Given that larger brains have greater thermolytic needs and brain temperature is determined in part by heat production from neuronal activity, it was hypothesized that animals with larger brains and more neurons would yawn lo...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8102614/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33958700 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02019-y |
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author | Massen, Jorg J. M. Hartlieb, Margarita Martin, Jordan S. Leitgeb, Elisabeth B. Hockl, Jasmin Kocourek, Martin Olkowicz, Seweryn Zhang, Yicheng Osadnik, Christin Verkleij, Jorrit W. Bugnyar, Thomas Němec, Pavel Gallup, Andrew C. |
author_facet | Massen, Jorg J. M. Hartlieb, Margarita Martin, Jordan S. Leitgeb, Elisabeth B. Hockl, Jasmin Kocourek, Martin Olkowicz, Seweryn Zhang, Yicheng Osadnik, Christin Verkleij, Jorrit W. Bugnyar, Thomas Němec, Pavel Gallup, Andrew C. |
author_sort | Massen, Jorg J. M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Recent studies indicate that yawning evolved as a brain cooling mechanism. Given that larger brains have greater thermolytic needs and brain temperature is determined in part by heat production from neuronal activity, it was hypothesized that animals with larger brains and more neurons would yawn longer to produce comparable cooling effects. To test this, we performed the largest study on yawning ever conducted, analyzing 1291 yawns from 101 species (55 mammals; 46 birds). Phylogenetically controlled analyses revealed robust positive correlations between yawn duration and (1) brain mass, (2) total neuron number, and (3) cortical/pallial neuron number in both mammals and birds, which cannot be attributed solely to allometric scaling rules. These relationships were similar across clades, though mammals exhibited considerably longer yawns than birds of comparable brain and body mass. These findings provide further evidence suggesting that yawning is a thermoregulatory adaptation that has been conserved across amniote evolution. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8102614 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-81026142021-05-10 Brain size and neuron numbers drive differences in yawn duration across mammals and birds Massen, Jorg J. M. Hartlieb, Margarita Martin, Jordan S. Leitgeb, Elisabeth B. Hockl, Jasmin Kocourek, Martin Olkowicz, Seweryn Zhang, Yicheng Osadnik, Christin Verkleij, Jorrit W. Bugnyar, Thomas Němec, Pavel Gallup, Andrew C. Commun Biol Article Recent studies indicate that yawning evolved as a brain cooling mechanism. Given that larger brains have greater thermolytic needs and brain temperature is determined in part by heat production from neuronal activity, it was hypothesized that animals with larger brains and more neurons would yawn longer to produce comparable cooling effects. To test this, we performed the largest study on yawning ever conducted, analyzing 1291 yawns from 101 species (55 mammals; 46 birds). Phylogenetically controlled analyses revealed robust positive correlations between yawn duration and (1) brain mass, (2) total neuron number, and (3) cortical/pallial neuron number in both mammals and birds, which cannot be attributed solely to allometric scaling rules. These relationships were similar across clades, though mammals exhibited considerably longer yawns than birds of comparable brain and body mass. These findings provide further evidence suggesting that yawning is a thermoregulatory adaptation that has been conserved across amniote evolution. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-05-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8102614/ /pubmed/33958700 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02019-y Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Massen, Jorg J. M. Hartlieb, Margarita Martin, Jordan S. Leitgeb, Elisabeth B. Hockl, Jasmin Kocourek, Martin Olkowicz, Seweryn Zhang, Yicheng Osadnik, Christin Verkleij, Jorrit W. Bugnyar, Thomas Němec, Pavel Gallup, Andrew C. Brain size and neuron numbers drive differences in yawn duration across mammals and birds |
title | Brain size and neuron numbers drive differences in yawn duration across mammals and birds |
title_full | Brain size and neuron numbers drive differences in yawn duration across mammals and birds |
title_fullStr | Brain size and neuron numbers drive differences in yawn duration across mammals and birds |
title_full_unstemmed | Brain size and neuron numbers drive differences in yawn duration across mammals and birds |
title_short | Brain size and neuron numbers drive differences in yawn duration across mammals and birds |
title_sort | brain size and neuron numbers drive differences in yawn duration across mammals and birds |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8102614/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33958700 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02019-y |
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