BIG BRAINS!!!

Are bigger brains better? 

Chittka L, Niven J.

Attempts to relate brain size to behaviour and cognition have rarely integrated information from insects with that from vertebrates. Many insects, however, demonstrate that highly differentiated motor repertoires, extensive social structures and cognition are possible with very small brains, emphasising that we need to understand the neural circuits, not just the size of brain regions, which underlie these feats. Neural network analyses show that cognitive features found in insects, such as numerosity, attention and categorisation-like processes, may require only very limited neuron numbers. Thus, brain size may have less of a relationship with behavioural repertoire and cognitive capacity than generally assumed, prompting the question of what large brains are for. Larger brains are, at least partly, a consequence of larger neurons that are necessary in large animals due to basic biophysical constraints. They also contain greater replication of neuronal circuits, adding precision to sensory processes, detail to perception, more parallel processing and enlarged storage capacity. Yet, these advantages are unlikely to produce the qualitative shifts in behaviour that are often assumed to accompany increased brain size. Instead, modularity and interconnectivity may be more important.

Curr Biol. 2009 Nov 17;19(21):R995-R1008.

Why is this cool?

  Today's paper is a review/hypothesis paper that points at large brains and laughs at them. From the abstract, the authors highlight the fact that all behaviors that people think are special in humans are, in fact, replicated by any number of species. On top of that, those species have incomprehensibly small brains!! How do they do it?
 Let's flip the question and ask, why are our awesome mammal brains so gargantuan?

1. We are bigger and as a consequence our brains cells (neurons and glia) have to be bigger.

2. We do a lot of precise work and so we need extremely precise motor control.

3. We remember a lot of stuff.

4. PARALLEL PROCESSING!! We replicate many neuronal circuits and as a result we can think multiple things at once!

 Well, it turns out that to function in this cold world, you don't need all of that stuff. You can get by just swinging sticks and thinking one thought at a time. When you think about all the add-ons that we have in our brains, we seem to be carrying around a Rube-Goldberg Brain!
 Consider this, to turn on a light you need only get to the light and flip the switch. You don't need to be particularly precise and you don't need to be particularly balanced. You don't need to remember that birthday party where you had no friends and you cried yourself to sleep and then your Mom woke up by turning on your bedroom light. Also, you don't need to think about how lights can be improved or how you can improve energy consumption by changing your bulbs. You just need to get to the switch and flip it. Now, when I think of the Tyrannosaurus Rex brain being super tiny, it makes sense. You don't need a super brain to mutilate animals. You just need razor sharp teeth and focus.
 Interestingly, smart people are referred to as big brains, but in comics no super genius has a massive head to house an equally massive brain. Villain geniuses, on the other hand, almost always have hypnotically larges heads. 

 I don't know what Krang's deal is with the Ninja Turtles. He is some interdimensional conqueror, but I have never seen him do anything worthwhile. He certainly is menacing with that huge brain.

So, Lobe was a normal human who used science to replicate the powers of mutants and to give himself super intelligence! Awesome! Also, he is the current CEO or CSO of the Sublime Corporation.

  I had never heard of Egg-Fu until 52, when he recruited a ton of superscientists to create the Four Horsemen in order for Intergang to get revenge on Black Adam! Yes, he is a big egg.

  The Leader is one of the original big headed villians! He has gone through the years trying to prove to the Hulk that brains beat brawn, but, sadly, he is completely wrong. Recently, he has put together some superscientists of his own and, I think, created the RED HULK!

Mental.
Organism.
Designed.
Only for.
Killing.

 M.O.D.O.K. takes the game to a new level! He was super evolved by A.I.M. and was a nobody for many years. By nobody, I mean that he was a joke in the villain world. Recently, he has teamed up with the Leader to be superscience bad asses. Unfortunatley, not everyone wants to see the 'DOK all sorts of extreme and so he regularly appears in silly comics.