Economos A C
Gerontology. 1980;26(2):82-9. doi: 10.1159/000212399.
Empirical evidence for the conjecture that brain weight of mammals is a better predictor of life span than is body weight, is reexamined and evaluated in this paper. The original evidence was that for 63 mammalian species, log brain weight explained 79% of the log life span variance, whereas log body weight explained only 60%; thus, the correlation coefficient rbr for the linear regression of the log life span on log brain weight was 0.88, whereas the correlation coefficient rb for the regression of log life span on log body weight was 0.77. From data on 40 mammalian species (including three primates), we found rbr = 0.81 and rb = 0.75; from data on 35 primate species, we found rbr = 0.68 and rb = 0.65. Correlation coefficients rliv, radr for the regression of log life span on log liver weight or log adrenal weight, respectively, were rliv = 0.78 and radr = 0.81 for the same 40 mammalian species. We conclude that brain weight appears to be a slightly better predictor of life span than body weight but not better than adrenal weight. One primary reason why body weight is a poorer predictor of life span may be a result of its wider range of values compared with brain and adrenal weights.
本文重新审视并评估了关于哺乳动物脑重量比体重更能预测寿命这一猜想的实证证据。原始证据表明，对于63种哺乳动物，脑重量的对数解释了寿命对数方差的79%，而体重的对数仅解释了60%；因此，寿命对数关于脑重量对数的线性回归相关系数rbr为0.88，而寿命对数关于体重对数的回归相关系数rb为0.77。从40种哺乳动物（包括三种灵长类动物）的数据中，我们发现rbr = 0.81且rb = 0.75；从35种灵长类动物的数据中，我们发现rbr = 0.68且rb = 0.65。对于相同的40种哺乳动物，寿命对数关于肝脏重量对数或肾上腺重量对数的回归相关系数rliv、radr分别为rliv = 0.78且radr = 0.81。我们得出结论，脑重量似乎比体重更能略微准确地预测寿命，但不比肾上腺重量更优。体重作为寿命预测指标较差的一个主要原因可能是，与脑重量和肾上腺重量相比，其数值范围更广。
