Exaptation and Neural Reuse: A Research Perspective into Human Specificity.

• Autores: Ivan Colagè, Paolo D'Ambrosio
• Localización: Antonianum, ISSN 0003-6064, Nº. 2-3 (Aprilis-September), 2014, págs. 333-358
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Developments in cognitive neurosciences and scientific anthropology are nowadays casting new light on key features of human specificity. Interesting conceptual insights are provided by the notion of exaptation in human evolution and the so-called neural reuse approach, according to which some areas of the brain originally evolved to underpin some particular functions are later recycled or exploited for subserving different ones. We will assess the interrelations between esaptation and neural reuse taking into account recent perpectives of investigation. First, we will propose a brief overview of different usages of exaptation in life sciences, while trying to distil sharp criteria for its application. Then, we will turn our focus to the significance of exaptive processes for the emergence of higher cognitive capabilities, with special reference to the origin of human language. At the same time, we will argue that exaptation may have a narrower scope of applicability than it is cometimes assumed. Subsequently, we will concentrate on neural reuse and condiser its similarities and differences with exaptation. Here we will emphasize that neural reuse may occur at both the phylogenetic and the ontogenetic levels. Finally, we will propose that neural reuse at the ontogenetic level may unveil cases in which genuinely cultural dynamics are able to affect human brain anatomy without resorting to evolutionay mechanisms. This could contitute a further element of human specificity.