ArticleBiology letters2019
Large brains, short life: selection on brain size impacts intrinsic lifespan.
Article in Biology letters, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 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
6 citing papers in PubMed, 36 citations in OpenAlex.
- Deep learning reveals the complex genetic architecture of male guppy colouration.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Large and expensive brain comes with a short lifespan: The relationship between brain size and longevity among fish taxa.Journal of fish biology · 2022Article
- Coevolution of relative brain size and life expectancy in parrots.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Rapid mosaic brain evolution under artificial selection for relative telencephalon size in the guppy (Science advances · 2021Article
- Brain size variation along altitudinal gradients in the Asiatic Toad (Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The relationship between brain size and ageing is a paradox. The cognitive benefits of large brains should protect from extrinsic mortality and thus indirectly select for slower ageing. However, the substantial energetic cost of neural tissue may also impact the energetic budget of large-brained organisms, causing less investment in somatic maintenance and thereby faster ageing. While the positive association between brain size and survival in the wild is well established, no studies exist on the direct effects of brain size on ageing. Here we test how brain size influences intrinsic ageing in guppy ( Poecilia reticulata) brain size selection lines with 12% difference in relative brain size. Measuring survival under benign conditions, we find that large-brained animals live 22% shorter than small-brained animals and the effect is similar in both males and females. Our results suggest a trade-off between investment into brain size and somatic maintenance. This implies that the link between brain size and ageing is contingent on the mechanism of mortality, and selection for positive correlations between brain size and ageing should occur mainly under cognition-driven survival benefits from increased brain size. We show that accelerated ageing can be a cost of evolving a larger brain.
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Registered trials
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