Clues to nervous system evolution found in nerve-less sponge June 18, 2012
“Is the human brain just a lot more of the same stuff, or has it changed in a qualitative way?”
My comment:
The most likely similarity is the role of glucose in the regulation of gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) secreting neurons of the mammalian brain. Food deprivation suppresses GnRH-dependent pulsatile luteinizing hormone (LH) secretion in rats, sheep, monkeys and humans, which is consistent with inhibition of pulsatile GnRH release.
GnRH, is the molecule Kochman (2012) indicated was perfectly constructed because it hasn’t changed during the past 400 million years, although diversification of its receptor appears to allow for things like pheromone-dependent self / non-self recognition (at the advent of sexual reproduction, which requires a primitive immune system and means for sexual orientation).
GnRH also links nutrient chemicals and pheromones directly to adaptive evolution via the required ecological, social, neurogenic, and cognitive niche construction evidenced by the apparent design in biology.
James V. Kohl detailedl how quantized energy-dependent microRNA biogenesis links the pheromone-controlled physiology of reproduction to biophysically constrained viral latency and healthy longevity. Links from what organisms eat to the enzyme-dependent metabolism of food also link metabolic networks to microRNA-mediated genetic networks in the context of RNA interference. Drug therapies alter RNA interference by altering cell type differentiation in all cells of all individuals of all species. For comparison, during the past 26 years, Kohl has detailed how the chemistry of protein folding is biophysically constrained at every level of biological organization by conserved molecular mechanisms.