The evolution of human intelligence and the coefficient of additive genetic variance in human brain size

Miller, Geoffrey F.; Penke, Lars

doi:10.1016/j.intell.2006.08.008

Cited by 101 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 180 publications

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“…Other recent findings provide convergent support (Miller & Penke, 2007;Posthuma et al, 2003;Prokosch et al, 2005;Silventoinen, Posthuma, van Beijsterveldt, Bartels, & Boomsma, 2006;Sundet, Tambs, Harris, Magnus, & Torjussen, 2005). For example, in a previous analysis of VES data, we reported positive correlations (.14-.19) between intelligence and three measures of semen quality-sperm count, sperm concentration, and sperm motility-which is likely to be a highly fitness-related trait in males (Arden, Gottfredson, Miller, & Pierce, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Does a fitness factor contribute to the association between intelligence and health outcomes? Evidence from medical abnormality counts among 3654 US Veterans

2009

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Does a fitness factor contribute to the association between intelligence and health outcomes? Evidence from medical abnormality counts among 3654 US Veterans

2009

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“…The low evolvability estimates for brain size could be indicative of it having been subject to history of strong stabilizing selection (cf. [58]). However, in the view that brain size is a high-dimensional composite trait which should accumulate genetic variance through all genes influencing its different parts, this explanation seems unlikely.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ellipsoid model [33] we used to estimate the size of the different brain regions is likely to have lower resolution than more sophisticated methods such as magnetic resonance imaging [58] and histology (e.g. [27]) that are increasingly used to characterize variability in brain structures.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitative genetic analysis of brain size variation in sticklebacks: support for the mosaic model of brain evolution

et al. 2015

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The mosaic model of brain evolution postulates that different brain regions are relatively free to evolve independently from each other. Such independent evolution is possible only if genetic correlations among the different brain regions are less than unity. We estimated heritabilities, evolvabilities and genetic correlations of relative size of the brain, and its different regions in the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). We found that heritabilities were low (average h 2 ¼ 0.24), suggesting a large plastic component to brain architecture.However, evolvabilities of different brain parts were moderate, suggesting the presence of additive genetic variance to sustain a response to selection in the long term. Genetic correlations among different brain regions were low (average r G ¼ 0.40) and significantly less than unity. These results, along with those from analyses of phenotypic and genetic integration, indicate a high degree of independence between different brain regions, suggesting that responses to selection are unlikely to be severely constrained by genetic and phenotypic correlations. Hence, the results give strong support for the mosaic model of brain evolution. However, the genetic correlation between brain and body size was high (r G ¼ 0.89), suggesting a constraint for independent evolution of brain and body size in sticklebacks.

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“…We also expand on these previous two studies and examine phenomena that are still unexplored in studies of Jensen effects in human intelligence: it is possible to calculate coefficients of additive genetic variance (CVA) using the database from Hopkins et al (2014), which constitute a mean-standardized and scale-invariant index of genetic variance in a trait (Houle, 1992). Unlike heritabilities, CVAs are independent of environmental variation effects upon individuals, and they are evolutionarily informative as high CVAs are typical of fitness-related traits, especially those under directional selection and those influenced by many genes (Miller & Penke, 2007). Thus, we predict that there should also be a Jensen effect on CVA, which would indicate that more g -loaded abilities have been subjected to stronger and more recent selection pressures than more specific and modularized cognitive abilities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The more g-loaded, the more heritable, evolvable, and phenotypically variable: Homology with humans in chimpanzee cognitive abilities

Fernandes

Hopkins

2015

Intelligence

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Expanding on a recent study that identified a heritable general intelligence factor (g) among individual chimpanzees from a battery of cognitive tasks, we hypothesized that the cognitive abilities that are more g-loaded would be more heritable and would present more additive genetic variance, in addition to showing more phenotypic variability. This pattern was confirmed, and is comparable to that found in humans, indicating fundamental homology. Finally, tool use presented the highest heritability, the largest amount of additive genetic variance and of phenotypic variance, consistent with previous findings indicating that it is associated with high interspecies variance and evolutionary rates in comparative primate studies.

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The evolution of human intelligence and the coefficient of additive genetic variance in human brain size

Cited by 101 publications

References 180 publications

Does a fitness factor contribute to the association between intelligence and health outcomes? Evidence from medical abnormality counts among 3654 US Veterans

Does a fitness factor contribute to the association between intelligence and health outcomes? Evidence from medical abnormality counts among 3654 US Veterans

Quantitative genetic analysis of brain size variation in sticklebacks: support for the mosaic model of brain evolution

The more g-loaded, the more heritable, evolvable, and phenotypically variable: Homology with humans in chimpanzee cognitive abilities

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