Macaca fuscataFLICKR, CHRISLIANG82Humans and other primates have a remarkable ability to detect snakes, even in a chaotic visual environment. Primate socioecologist Lynne Isbell has long theorized that snakes played a significant role in the evolutionary history of primates, and a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today (October 28) provides the first neuroscientific evidence to support her hypothesis. Specifically, Isbell and her colleagues identify neurons in the Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata) brain that respond selectively to images of snakes.
“This is the first evidence of snake-selective neurons in the primate brain that I’m aware of,” said Dartmouth College’s Seth Dobson, a biological anthropologist who was not involved in the work. “And it provides some of the strongest support for the general idea that predation has been a major factor shaping primate evolution.”
“The authors clearly show that there is some feature in the snake stimuli that excites many neurons in the pulvinar,” a brain region involved in primate visual processing, echoed Vanderbilt University’s Roan Marion, who also was not involved in the work.
Isbell, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, first proposed her snake detection theory of primate evolution in 2006. In 2009, she published a book on the subject. ...
