The coevolution of play and the cortico-cerebellar system in primates.

ABSTRACT: Primates are some of the most playful animals in the natural world, yet the reason for this remains unclear. One hypothesis posits that primates are so playful because playful activity functions to help develop the sophisticated cognitive and behavioural abilities that they are also renowned for. If this hypothesis were true, then play might be expected to have coevolved with the neural substrates underlying these abilities in primates. Here, we tested this prediction by conducting phylogenetic comparative analyses to determine whether play has coevolved with the cortico-cerebellar system, a neural system known to be involved in complex cognition and the production of complex behaviour. We used phylogenetic generalised least squares analyses to compare the relative volume of the largest co

SUBMITTER: Kerney M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5622916 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature