Home Analysis Advanced Dexterity Might Require A Bigger Brain In Primates

Advanced Dexterity Might Require A Bigger Brain In Primates

by Gomer Albert

Large-brained primates that develop manual dexterity later acquire a lot of advanced skills.

A primate’s fingers endow it with the power to feed itself and manipulate objects, including, for a few species, tools.

A new study of 36 primate species explores dexterity, analyzing similarities in however they acquire hand and finger skills.

The study additionally finds that brain size is a crucial factor in the acquisition of advanced dexterity and fine-motor skills.

Primates 2

The study reveals that the foremost developed manual dexterity happens in primates with giant brains.

7 years have passed, the lead researcher and her colleagues studied 128 young primates living in 13 European zoos. They observed the animals from birth to the age at which had developed adult-level dexterity skills.

The researchers were stunned to see that the order in which the primates acquired specific skills was identical regardless of which species they studied.

Primates brain 2

The lead researcher and his team have stated, “The results have shown that the neural development follows very rigid patterns, even in primate species that disagree greatly in other respects.”

As long as the researchers tracked the development of manual dexterity skills common to a broad range of primates, the study proposed that such shared patterns can also apply to the few primates capable of advanced manual dexterity: “The ontogenetic order of emergence of six completely different artful skills was preserved across all 36 primate species despite massive species differences in the period of development.” “Some of this order is critical and unremarkable, for example, that unimanual grasping precedes object manipulation. Unexpectedly, however, the order of all alternative artful skills seems to be equally preserved, suggesting that a lot of complex motor skills additionally critically rely on particular pre-existent skills.”

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The authors of the study note that the human brain might not have developed as totally developed as other primates’ at birth. They have also stated the fact that “It’s not just because we are learning more complicated skills than lemurs or callitrichids, for example. It’s primarily because we don’t begin learning these skills until much later.”

Primates Brain

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