One motivation behind this review was that recently, I learned that neurobiologists knew of Ludwig Edinger while paleontologists knew of Tilly Edinger, his daugther. It made me realized how much, we had been disconnected from one another. I hope that this review brings these fields closer again ☺️

Moreover, AGI might also require social interactions to become a reality, where cultural evolution (and extended mind) play a major role. It is not by chance that brain and culture evolved together, allowing complex minds to emerge @anilseth.bsky.social @mitibennett.bsky.social

An evolutionary perspective is much required to truly understand consciousness, how it originates and what clases we might find. We proposed a space of possible cognitions and did a comparative analysis

Thanks to Arendt group: Detlev, Leslie, Tobi, Nico @galicae.bsky.social and Phil. My amazing students @gulceserka.bsky.social, @anaverbanac.bsky.social,Maite and Dori. Huge thanks to the Kaessmann lab for all their support and fruitful discussions @kaessmannlab.bsky.social @evo-and-devo.bsky.social

We now have a unique opportunity to keep developing cartilaginous fish models. Throug their study we will be able to explore how these and other features evolved across vertebrates and uncover the molecular mechanisms driving brain evolution. Stay tuned for more discoveries and tool developments!

Our study moved the postulated origin of several developmental pallial features back to the jawed common ancestor. We hypothesize these features likely contributed to the increased complexity of their brains coincident with the emergence of predation.

Using the plasmid, we showed that the dorsal pallial area gives rise to a layered structure aligned with the positions of Reelin and CRs. Moreover, this structure corresponds with a complex anatomical region that brings together glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons, likely forming a complex circuitry

We developed a protocol to label shark neural tissue with a reporter plasmid- First time this is achieved in a Cartilaginous Fish! Impossible without (bluesky-less) Maite Boersig, Isabel Rollán, Dori Torres-Sabino and Rami Reshef. The coolest shark team ever!🦈💙

Till recently, bony fish have been the main fish reference group for comparative purpose, but contrary to cartilaginous fish, they are evolutionary speedsters, with brains that have taken unique paths.

Another key finding of our work is that nervous systems may have became centralized EARLIER than previously assumed 🤩.

We found that the ctenophore aboral organ is tightly associated with a condensed SYNCYTIAL nerve net. See below: comparison of regular vs. condensed nerve net.

The aboral organ of a 1-day-old ctenophore is composed of ca. 900 cells, encompassing 17 distinct cell types 🤩. Below are examples for each cell type.

#cilia #sensory #vesicles #diversity #neuron

13. Gabi et al. 2010, Brain Behav Evol, doi:10.1159/000319872