Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Nov;26(6):1751-1762.
doi: 10.1007/s10071-023-01825-7. Epub 2023 Dec 2.

Why an animal needs a brain

Peter Sterling  1 , Simon Laughlin  2
Affiliations

Why an animal needs a brain

Peter Sterling et al. Anim Cogn. 2023 Nov.

Erratum in

  • Correction: Why an animal needs a brain.
    Sterling P, Laughlin S. Sterling P, et al. Anim Cogn. 2023 Nov;26(6):1763-1765. doi: 10.1007/s10071-023-01834-6. Anim Cogn. 2023. PMID: 38117347 No abstract available.

Abstract

In Principles of Neural Design (2015, MIT Press), inspired by Charles Darwin, Sterling and Laughlin undertook the unfashionable task of distilling principles from facts in the technique-driven, data-saturated domain of neuroscience. Their starting point for deriving the organizing principles of brains are two brainless single-celled organisms, Escherichia coli and Paramecium, and the 302-neuron brain of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The book is an exemplar in how to connect the dots between simpler and (much) more complex organisms in a particular area. Here, they have generously agreed to republish an abridged version of Chapter 2 (Why an Animal Needs a Brain), in which many of their principles are first described.

Keywords: Caenorhabditis elegans; Escherichia coli; Metabolic cost; Neural design; Paramecium; Principles.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J, Raff M, Roberts K, Walter P (2008) Molecular biology of the cell, 5th edn. Garland Science, New York
    1. Ardiel EL, Rankin CH (2010) An elegant mind: Learning and memory in Caenorhabditis elegans. Learn Mem 17:191–201 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Azevedo FAC, Carvalho LRB, Grinberg LT, Farfel JM, Ferretti REL, Leite REP et al (2009) Equal numbers of neuronal and non-neuronal cells make the human brain an isometrically scaled-up primate brain. J Comparat Neurol 513:532–541 - DOI
    1. Bargmann CI (2012) Beyond the connectome: How neuromodulators shape neural circuits. BioEssays 34:458–465 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Berg H (1993) Random walks in biology. Princeton University Press, Princeton

LinkOut - more resources