What the title says.
From what I understand brains have folds to achieve more surface area to allow more neurons but surely a smooth brain that completely filled the skull would be better because volume > surface area. So what makes surface area important? Is it just for neurons or all cells?
In: Biology
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Both are important. Volume obviously has a lot to do with the total number of neurons that can be present in a brain. The surface area specifically dictates how much cortex can be present, which is broadly important for a wide range of cognitive, sensory and motor capacities, especially in larger brains.
Most of the neurons in your brain are at the surface, the interior volume is almost entirely connections between them.
You could hypothetically have neurons all the way through, but we’re kind of locked into this configuration, and the way evolution adds “more surface” is by wrinkling the brain like a raisin instead of “just” growing neurons deeper into its interior.
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