the properties of chemicalcompounds, the spectrum of sunlight; others are probabilistic). Natural selection not only selects genes, but alsoincludes or excludes (selects) environmental factors as part of this inheritance by selecting for genes that specifydevelopmental programs that either involve various factors in development or render them irrelevant. Wehypothesize that what is genetically specified should be a first order set of developmental programs (distributed inthe gross structure of the early brain): programs that bootstrap their way uphill to greater levels of functionalorganization through programmed endogenous interactions, and interactions with evolutionarily targetted environmentalinvariants that supply missing information. Because the functions of the brain's network of neural devices arecomputational rather than physical or chemical, the developmental programs in the brain must necessarily useevolved computational criteriaadaptive targetsto guide the process of wiring to the final levels of functionalprecision. That is, each functionally distinct evolved neural unit must contain feedback-driven developmentalprograms that test the unit (including expected inputs and computed outputs) against its own proprietary set ofcomputational benchmarks (adaptive targets). This system can detect the degree to which its computationsconform to its required functional specifications, and use this error term as input to feedback-driven adjustmentsuntil the target coordination is achieved. Robustly specified adaptive targets allow the developing brain to anti-entropically countervail against environmental perturbations, genetic noise (except in the specification of theadaptive targets), and insults, so that the necessary evolved computational interrelationships are exactinglyachieved, even though substantial individual differences in the physical layout may emerge in the course of wiringaround an insult. On this view, observed neural plasticity is not a mechanism, but an effect of a diverse set ofadaptively highly targeted, hill-climbing mechanisms. The intuitively appealing idea of global plasticity or generalflexibility is an insufficient way of describing the principles involved because flexibility just means the capacity tovary, and there are vastly more potential variants that are wrong than are functional. The hard computationalproblem for developmental programs is the identification, out of the vast space of possible configurations, of thattiny subset that create, improve or restore function. Heterogeneous sets of adaptive targets are the necessarysolution required to build the species' diverse complement of neurocognitive mechanisms, because each mustcompute different functional outputs according to their own divergent proprietary evolved criteria of functional

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Office of The Director, National Institutes of Health (OD)
Type
NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (NDPA) (DP1)
Project #
5DP1OD000516-04
Application #
7499008
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZGM1-NDPA-G (P3))
Program Officer
Jones, Warren
Project Start
2005-09-30
Project End
2010-07-31
Budget Start
2008-08-01
Budget End
2009-07-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2008
Total Cost
$717,728
Indirect Cost
Name
University of California Santa Barbara
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
094878394
City
Santa Barbara
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
93106
Urlacher, Samuel S; Blackwell, Aaron D; Liebert, Melissa A et al. (2016) Physical growth of the shuar: Height, Weight, and BMI references for an indigenous amazonian population. Am J Hum Biol 28:16-30
Urlacher, Samuel S; Liebert, Melissa A; Josh Snodgrass, J et al. (2016) Heterogeneous effects of market integration on sub-adult body size and nutritional status among the Shuar of Amazonian Ecuador. Ann Hum Biol 43:316-29
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Pietraszewski, David; Cosmides, Leda; Tooby, John (2014) The content of our cooperation, not the color of our skin: an alliance detection system regulates categorization by coalition and race, but not sex. PLoS One 9:e88534
Liebert, Melissa A; Snodgrass, J Josh; Madimenos, Felicia C et al. (2013) Implications of market integration for cardiovascular and metabolic health among an indigenous Amazonian Ecuadorian population. Ann Hum Biol 40:228-42
McDade, Thomas W; Tallman, Paula S; Madimenos, Felicia C et al. (2012) Analysis of variability of high sensitivity C-reactive protein in lowland Ecuador reveals no evidence of chronic low-grade inflammation. Am J Hum Biol 24:675-81
Delton, Andrew W; Cosmides, Leda; Guemo, Marvin et al. (2012) The psychosemantics of free riding: dissecting the architecture of a moral concept. J Pers Soc Psychol 102:1252-70

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