TIBBE – The Integrative Biology of Brain Evolution

gen­er­ously fun­ded by a European Soci­ety for Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy (ESEB) Spe­cial Top­ics Net­work (STN)

TIBBE web­site: https://tibbe-network.github.io

Background

Brains are the product of evol­u­tion­ary pro­cesses that act on the entire organ­ism. Selec­tion acts dir­ectly on beha­viour, but the brain also medi­ates beha­vi­our­al responses to the envir­on­ment.  Beha­vi­our­al dif­fer­ences stem from devel­op­ment­al vari­ab­il­ity in the pro­duc­tion of neur­al cir­cuits, but some cir­cuits may be more robust to devel­op­ment­al noise than oth­ers, and some neur­al traits may be sig­ni­fic­antly con­strained. These dynam­ic pro­cesses and inter­ac­tions shape the way the brain evolves across time, and in response to dif­fer­ent selec­tion regimes. Dis­en­tangling these inter­ac­tions is dif­fi­cult, mak­ing it chal­len­ging to identi­fy spe­cif­ic factors that drive evol­u­tion. Yet, uncov­er­ing gen­er­al prin­ciples that determ­ine the evolvab­il­ity of neur­al sys­tems can illu­min­ate factors that have influ­enced brain evolution. 

Mech­an­isms of brain evol­u­tion are inev­it­ably com­plex, and as such, identi­fy­ing gen­er­al prin­ciples affect­ing how brains and beha­viour evolve is a major chal­lenge. TIBBE – The Integ­rat­ive Bio­logy of Brain Evol­u­tion – aims to facil­it­ate advances in this endeav­our by encour­aging integ­rat­ive approaches, across dis­cip­lines, study sys­tems and bio­lo­gic­al levels.  Our col­lab­or­at­ive net­work will encour­age and sup­port syn­thes­ising data, meth­ods and ideas from mul­tiple stud­ies and sys­tems to gen­er­ate more com­pre­hens­ive insights into the evol­u­tion­ary his­tory of the brain.

Our net­work is estab­lished at a time when brain evol­u­tion research is rap­idly advan­cing, with new com­par­at­ive brain data being gen­er­ated through the use of a vari­ety of tech­niques from beha­vi­our­al obser­va­tion, to advanced ima­ging tech­niques, span­ning single cells and syn­apses to whole brain net­works. In par­al­lel, new devel­op­ments in com­par­at­ive stat­ist­ics allow for integ­ra­tion across data types, and for more power­ful and inform­at­ive phylo­gen­et­ic ana­lyses. It is there­fore timely to estab­lish an infra­struc­ture to exchange these data across scales and mod­al­it­ies, cur­ate resources, tools and tutori­als on how to use and integ­rate them, and build col­lab­or­a­tions around a broad­er com­par­at­ive frame­work that could foster insights in gen­er­al mech­an­isms and pat­terns under­ly­ing brain evolution.

Objectives

The broad goal of TIBBE is to encour­age and sup­port syn­thes­ising data, meth­ods and ideas from mul­tiple stud­ies and sys­tems to gen­er­ate more com­pre­hens­ive insights into the evol­u­tion­ary his­tory of the brain. Our three object­ives focus on act­ive research areas , and we will util­ise the broad expert­ise with­in TIBBE to devel­op fun­da­ment­al ques­tions about brain evol­u­tion and an inter­dis­cip­lin­ary research program.

i. Identi­fy com­mon intern­al mech­an­isms of brain evol­u­tion, across spe­cies. What devel­op­ment­al, phys­ic­al, and evol­u­tion­ary drivers and con­straints act on brain com­pos­i­tion and net­work archi­tec­ture across animals?

ii. Address how the brain evolves with­in the great­er con­text of organis­mal func­tion­al physiology and eco­logy. How do the evol­u­tion of brain struc­ture, con­nectiv­ity, and func­tion inter­act with changes in the body, physiology, eco­logy and environment?

iii. Determ­ine wheth­er cer­tain brain struc­tures and func­tions are more evolvable than oth­ers. Do all beha­vi­our­al cir­cuits evolve accord­ing to sim­il­ar rules? To what extent is evolvab­il­ity influ­enced by the par­tic­u­lar nature of the beha­viour, fea­tures of the neur­al cir­cuits, and/or oth­er factors such as genet­ic and mech­an­ic­al influ­ences dur­ing development?

Our over­rid­ing belief is that to address these object­ives we need to integ­rate ana­lyt­ic­al approaches and data across diverse spe­cies. The study of brain evol­u­tion is divided into com­munit­ies with spe­cif­ic areas of expert­ise; ran­ging from molecu­lar genet­ics, to com­par­at­ive ana­tomy, pale­oneur­o­logy, and neur­o­eth­o­logy. Research­ers are fur­ther divided accord­ing to the taxa they study. Cur­rently, few bridges extend across these com­munit­ies to identi­fy com­mon themes, motiv­a­tions. Cre­at­ing these bridges will sup­port future endeav­ours aim­ing at a com­pre­hens­ive under­stand­ing of brain evolution. 

Outcomes

TIBBE will bring togeth­er research­ers work­ing on brain evol­u­tion to exchange ideas, share expert­ise on tools and meth­ods, share data, and dis­cuss new find­ings. The net­work will be open to all brain evol­u­tion research­ers to par­ti­cip­ate in events, (co-)organise events, and con­trib­ute to the web plat­form. This will facil­it­ate inter­ac­tion and col­lab­or­a­tion among the wider brain evol­u­tion com­munity, ensur­ing act­ive integ­ra­tion of early-career research­ers, cre­at­ing an inclus­ive and diverse network. 

For more inform­a­tion see:

https://tibbe-network.github.io

Committee chairs:

Katja Heuer (Uni­ver­sity of Par­is, FR), Roberto Toro (Uni­ver­sity of Par­is, FR), Alex­an­dra de Sousa (Bath Spa Uni­ver­sity, UK), Steph­en Mont­gomery (Uni­ver­sity of Bris­tol, UK)

Con­tact:

katjaQheuer@gmail.com
rto@pasteur.fr
s.montgomery@bristol.ac.uk
alexandraallisonsousa@gmail.com

Organising committee:

Zegni Triki (Bern Uni­ver­sity, Switzer­land), Car­men Fal­cone (SISSA Scuola Internazionale Superi­ore di Studi Avan­zati, Italy), Maria Cas­tello (Insti­tuto de Invest­iga­ciones Bio­ló­gicas Clem­ente Estable (IIBCE), Min­is­terio de Edu­ca­ción y Cul­tura (MEC), Uruguay), Kristina Kverkova (Charles Uni­ver­sity, Czech Repub­lic), Lucia Pri­eto-Godino (The Fran­cis Crick Insti­tute, UK), Ornella Ber­trand (Uni­versit­at Autònoma de Bar­celona, Spain), Rogi­er Mars (Uni­ver­sity of Oxford and Don­ders Insti­tute for Brain, Cog­ni­tion and Beha­viour, Rad­boud Uni­ver­sity Nijme­gen, UK and The Netherlands)