ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2022
An evolutionary perspective on chordate brain organization and function: insights from amphioxus, and the problem of sentience.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- A 3D amphioxus brain atlas illuminates the blueprint of the ancestral chordate brain and highlights unique vertebrate innovations.Science advances · 2026Article
- Non-visual photoreceptive brain specification in sea urchin larvae.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Evolutionary diversification of ancestral genes across vertebrates and insects.Genome biology · 2025Article
- Neurobiological emergentism: sentience as an emergent process and the experiential gap.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Animal models in neuroscience with alternative approaches: Evolutionary, biomedical, and ethical perspectives.Animal models and experimental medicine · 2024Review
- Comparison of genes involved in brain development: insights into the organization and evolution of the telencephalic pallium.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Ancestral role of Pax6 in chordate brain regionalization.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2024Article
- Behavioural Indicators of Pain and Suffering in Arthropods and Might Pain Bite Back?Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Review
- Why it hurts: with freedom comes the biological need for pain.Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Article
- As soon as there was life, there was danger: the deep history of survival behaviours and the shallower history of consciousness.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- The neural bases of vertebrate motor behaviour through the lens of evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Neuroscience needs evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- On the origins and evolution of qualia: An experience-space perspective.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2022Article
- Consciousness as a Product of Evolution: Contents, Selector Circuits, and Trajectories in Experience Space.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 5 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The similarities between amphioxus and vertebrate brains, in their regional subdivision, cell types and circuitry, make the former a useful benchmark for understanding the evolutionary innovations that shaped the latter. Locomotory control systems were already well developed in basal chordates, with the ventral neuropile of the dien-mesencephalon serving to set levels of activity and initiate locomotory actions. A chief deficit in amphioxus is the absence of complex vertebrate-type sense organs. Hence, much of vertebrate story is one of progressive improvement both to these and to sensory experience more broadly. This has two aspects: (i) anatomical and neurocircuitry innovations in the organs of special sense and the brain centres that process and store their output, and (ii) the emergence of primary consciousness, i.e. sentience. With respect to the latter, a bottom up, evolutionary perspective has a different focus from a top down human-centric one. At issue: the obstacles to the emergence of sentience in the first instance, the sequence of addition of new contents to evolving consciousness, and the homology relationship between them. A further question, and a subject for future investigation, is how subjective experience is optimized for each sensory modality. This article is part of the theme issue 'Systems neuroscience through the lens of evolutionary theory'.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.