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fookeryesterday at 8:32 AM1 replyview on HN

So, what we colloquially call 'reptile brain' turns out to be somewhat accurate.


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HarHarVeryFunnyyesterday at 12:41 PM

There is some truth (but not accuracy) to it, but not for this reason.

This article is about brainstem (aka hindbrain) vs the rest (midbrain + forebrain).

Evolutionally older animal lineages like fish, reptiles, birds all have midbrain + forebrain as well as the brainstem, so reptilian brain != brainstem.

Where there is some truth to our older "reptilian" brain is that the part of the forebrain called the pallium, that exists even in fish (& reptiles), has much expanded/evolved in mammals giving us our cortex and hippocampus, so you could kinda say that we have a reptilian brain + cortex. Note though that mammals didn't evolve from reptiles - they evolved in parallel from a common ancestor, so maybe better to say we have a fish brain + cortex (& hippocampus).

While the cortex is what gives mammals their intelligence, in birds the pallium evolved in a different way to give them theirs.

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