ArticleJournal of anatomy2016
Brain modularity across the theropod-bird transition: testing the influence of flight on neuroanatomical variation.
Article in Journal of anatomy, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed.
- Exploring Larval Axolotl Brain Development: Insights Into Developmental and Functional Constraints.Evolution & development · 2026Article
- Structural Equation Modeling Reveals How Allometry Shapes Integration in Avian Cranial Evolution.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Article
- Avian telencephalon and cerebellum volumes can be accurately estimated from digital brain endocasts.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Article
- Dinosaur palaeoneurology: an evolving science.Biology letters · 2024Review
- Endocranial development in non-avian dinosaurs reveals an ontogenetic brain trajectory distinct from extant archosaurs.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Avialan-like brain morphology in Sinovenator (Troodontidae, Theropoda).Communications biology · 2024Article
- Quantitative functional imaging of the pigeon brain: implications for the evolution of avian powered flight.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Neuroanatomy of the late Cretaceous Thescelosaurus neglectus (Neornithischia: Thescelosauridae) reveals novel ecological specialisations within Dinosauria.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Modified skulls but conservative brains? The palaeoneurology and endocranial anatomy of baryonychine dinosaurs (Theropoda: Spinosauridae).Journal of anatomy · 2023Article
- Inside the head of snakes: influence of size, phylogeny, and sensory ecology on endocranium morphology.Brain structure & function · 2021Article
- Novel neuroanatomical integration and scaling define avian brain shape evolution and development.eLife · 2021Article
- Endocranial morphology of the piciformes (Aves, Coraciimorphae): Functional and ecological implications.Journal of anatomy · 2021Article
- Bird neurocranial and body mass evolution across the end-Cretaceous mass extinction: The avian brain shape left other dinosaurs behind.Science advances · 2021Article
- A new two-fingered dinosaur sheds light on the radiation of Oviraptorosauria.Royal Society open science · 2020Article
- Avian palaeoneurology: Reflections on the eve of its 200th anniversary.Journal of anatomy · 2020Review
- Habitat transitions alter the adaptive landscape and shape phenotypic evolution in needlefishes (Belonidae).Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- Digital Endocasting in Comparative Canine Brain Morphology.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2020Article
- Multiphase progenetic development shaped the brain of flying archosaurs.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Flightless birds are not neuroanatomical analogs of non-avian dinosaurs.BMC evolutionary biology · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Living birds constitute the only vertebrate group whose brain volume relative to body size approaches the uniquely expanded values expressed by mammals. The broad suite of complex behaviors exhibited by crown-group birds, including sociality, vocal learning, parental care, and flying, suggests the origins of their encephalization was likely driven by a mosaic of selective pressures. If true, the historical pattern of brain expansion may be more complex than either a gradual expansion, as proposed by early studies of the avian brain, or a sudden expansion correlating with the appearance of flight. The origins of modern avian neuroanatomy are obscured by the more than 100 million years of evolution along their phylogenetic stem (from the origin of the modern radiation in the Middle Jurassic to the split from crocodile-line archosaurs). Here we use phylogenetic comparative approaches to explore which evolutionary scenarios best explain variation in measured volumes of digitally partitioned endocasts of modern birds and their non-avian ancestors. Our analyses suggest that variation in the relative volumes of the endocranium and cerebrum explain most of the structural variation in this lineage. Generalized multi-regime Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) models suggest that powered flight does not appear to be a driver of observed variation, reinforcing the hypothesis that the deep history of the avian brain is complex, with nuances still to be discovered.
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