Palaeontological Institute and Museum, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Vetsuisse Faculty, Clinic for Zoo Animals, Exotic Pets and Wildlife, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
J Exp Zool B Mol Dev Evol. 2022 Dec;338(8):460-483. doi: 10.1002/jez.b.23105. Epub 2021 Nov 23.
Comparisons of wild and domestic populations have established brain reduction as one of the most consistent patterns correlated with domestication. Over a century of scholarly work has been devoted to this subject, and yet, new data continue to foster its debate. Current arguments, both for and against the validity of brain reduction occurring in domestic taxa, have repeatedly cited a small set of reviews on this subject. The original works, their sampling, methodological details, and nuances of results that would be key to establishing validity, particularly in light of new data, have not been investigated. To facilitate and encourage a more informed discussion, we present a comprehensive review of original brain reduction literature for four mammalian clades: Artiodactyla, Perissodactyla, Carnivora, and Glires. Among these are studies that generated the most cited brain reduction values in modern domestication literature. In doing so, we provide a fairer stage for the critique of traits associated with domestication. We conclude that while brain reduction magnitudes may contain error, empirical data collectively support the reduction in brain size and cranial capacity for domestic forms.
对野生动物和家养动物种群的比较已经确定，大脑缩小是与驯化最相关的最一致的模式之一。一个多世纪以来，学术界一直在研究这个课题，但新的数据继续推动着它的争论。目前，无论是支持还是反对在家养分类群中发生大脑缩小的论点，都反复引用了一些关于这个主题的评论。原始作品、它们的采样、方法细节以及结果的细微差别对于确立有效性至关重要，特别是考虑到新的数据，这些都没有被调查。为了促进和鼓励更有见地的讨论，我们对四个哺乳动物类群（偶蹄目、奇蹄目、食肉目和啮齿目）的原始大脑缩小文献进行了全面回顾：这些研究产生了现代驯化文献中最常被引用的大脑缩小值。通过这样做，我们为与驯化相关的特征的批判提供了一个更公平的舞台。我们的结论是，虽然大脑缩小的幅度可能存在误差，但实证数据总体上支持了家养形式的大脑体积和颅容量的减少。
