Human brain is getting smaller

US scientists have recently demonstrated that the human brain is still evolving and getting smaller and smaller.

To find out whether humans actually stopped evolution, ancient anthropological experts from the University of Wisconsin (USA) conducted human gene analysis on continents. They found that a few hundred of our genes changed over the last 10,000 years, LiveScience said

The team also compared the prehistoric brain with modern humans to understand the trend of brain size changes over the past millennia.

'We all know the human brain continues to change in recent generations. Based on the results of brain size measurements, we were surprised to find that the human brain has been shrinking for about 5,000 years , 'said John Hawks, the lead researcher.

Hawks said ancient anthropology had very little detailed data on evolutionary changes in humans in recent generations. However, the professor asserted that he and his colleagues measured the size of human brains all over the world - Europe, China, South Africa, Australia - and compared it with prehistoric brains. Data show that the average volume of brain decreased by 150 cm ³ , equivalent to about 10%, in the last 5,000 years.

'We think that the volume of human brain is reduced because of changes in lifestyle. In the primitive ancestral society, humans had to hunt and gather themselves, so they had to take care of many things. Today human labor has been specialized to a very high level. We just need to do a good job and get what we need from society. So the brain doesn't need to be as big as it was in the primitive time, and its size keeps decreasing , 'explains Hawks.

Hawks and his colleagues believe that the rate of evolution of humans is increasing after they analyze some gene mutations originating from 40,000 years ago.