Scientists challenge a 70-year-old “lizard brain” myth
Researchers are challenging the 'lizard brain' myth, which suggests the human brain evolved in layers of increasing complexity. New evidence indicates that brain evolution is better understood as a competitive allocation of neural wiring strategies, a finding that could inform more efficient AI development.
Why it matters
Reframing our understanding of brain evolution helps correct long-standing misconceptions and provides a new blueprint for designing energy-efficient artificial neural networks.
Many important choices seem to pit reason against emotion. Popular culture often describes that tension as a contest between two parts of the brain: a newer, more advanced center for rational thought and an ancient "lizard brain" that runs on instinct.
But the evolutionary history of the brain appears to be far more complicated than a simple struggle between old and new.
"There was a theory proposed in the '50s that the brain evolved in layers starting with basic bodily functions, to emotions in the reptilian brain, leading up to sophisticated reasoning in humans," explains Nabil Imam, an assistant professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering and a faculty member with Georgia Tech's Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society (INNS). "This is not how an evolutionary biologist would think about the problem."
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