PSETI Seminar: The evolutionary replicability of cognition: Different ways of evolving tool-using brains in mammals, birds and fishes

Pierre Estienne

Abstract:
In this talk, I’ll briefly introduce how image-forming sensory modalities, neurons, and centralized brains have evolved multiple times on Earth, and will detail my PhD work on the convergent evolution of tool use in mammals, birds, and fishes. By studying the brains of tool-using fishes of the wrasse family, we found that they presented unique connectivity patterns that differed from non tool-using fishes. In particular, abundant connectivity was found in tool-using fishes between the pallium, a structure analogous to the mammalian neocortex, and the inferior lobe, a structure that only exists in fishes. Strikingly, the brains of tool-using fishes are organized very differently from other tool-using vertebrates like crows or primates. Our results indicate that vertebrate brains are evolutionarily very plastic and that similar behaviors can be produced by brain structures that have evolved independently. All in all, this work supports the idea that intelligence, demonstrated by behaviors like tool use, seems to be a robustly replicable ability that could easily evolve given certain conditions.