"The modern human brain is two to three times larger than that of our closest relatives, chimpanzees. But to supply energy to such metabolically demanding tissue, a distinct trade-off in energy allocation had to evolve.

In 1992, researchers proposed that this gradual expansion of the ancestral brain was made possible by switching from a vegetative diet to a meat-rich, fat-rich diet. As meat became a dietary staple, the gut shortened, and the brain no longer needed to rely on fuel from muscle and fat stores in the body. A shorter gut requires a great deal less energy than the lengthy gut of herbivores. Drawing on the extra energy resources from a fatty diet, and a shorter gut, the brain could afford to grow.

Greg Wray, an evolutionary biologist at Duke University, studies the genetic and molecular systems that co-evolved with this dietary shift to produce a larger brain. At the meeting, Wray laid out the case for meat and other protein-rich foods as evolutionary drivers of a bigger, more complex human brain.
...
Wray’s work could have broad implications for evolutionary medicine, an understanding of health and disease from the evolutionary perspective.

“Any time you take something as poised as a metabolic system and you drag it off and make it do something different, there will be unintended consequences,” Wray explained. “Something needs to compensate. So, probably a lot of medical issues are a result of these unintended consequences.”

As for vegetarians, Wray says they’ve had plenty to say to him about his work. He has one piece of advice: Creatine is important. Creatine, a natural acid gained from eating meat, plays a critical role in cognition. Wray encourages vegans to consider taking a creatine supplement, particularly if they’re pregnant." ~ Rebecca Searles, Feb. 24, 2011

Gregory A. Wray, Professor Duke University Biology
I study the evolution of genes and genomes with the broad aim of understanding the origins of biological diversity. My approach focuses on changes in the expression of genes using both empirical and computational approaches and spans scales of biological organization from single nucleotides through gene networks to entire genomes. At the finer end of this spectrum of scale, I am focusing on understanding the functional consequences and fitness components of specific genetic variants within regulatory sequences of several genes associated with ecologically relevant traits. At the other end of the scale, I am developing molecular and analytical methods to detect changes in gene function throughout entire genomes, including statistical frameworks for detecting natural selection on regulatory elements and empirical approaches to identify functional variation in transcriptional regulation. At intermediate scales, I am investigating functional variation within a dense gene network in the context of wild populations and natural perturbations. My research leverages the advantages of several different model systems, but primarily focuses on sea urchins and primates (including humans).

Education:
Ph.D., Duke University, 1987
B.S., College of William and Mary, 1981

Office Location: 125 Science Drive, 4104 French Family Science Center, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone: (919) 684-6696
Email Address: [email protected]
Web Page: http://www.biology.duke.edu/wraylab
Additional Web Page: https://sites.duke.edu/wraylab/

Specialties:
Evolution
Developmental Biology
Genomics

Research Categories: Evolution of gene networks and developmental mechanisms

Rebecca Searles is a biology and psychology student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She edits Carolina Scientific, an undergraduate research publication, and she hopes to pursue a career in science writing. She writes a blog, The Stone Age Mind, for Psychology Today. Reach her at [email protected].

nasw.org/article/eating-meat-drove-evolution-our-big-powerful-brain

Image Credit: "Eating meat made us human" Kirstine Friis Albrechtsen, uploaded image to pinterest.com/kirstinefriis/real-prehistoric-food/

allyouneedisbiology.wordpress.com/2015/12/26/meat-evolution-humans