Unlocking the shrew’s secret to shrinking its own cognitive tissue in winter – only to regrow it in spring – may help doctors treat brain diseases in humans.
This article is part of Animalia, a column exploring the strange and fascinating world of animals and the ways in which we appreciate, imperil and depend on them.In just a few seconds it found the prize concealed in the sandbox: a tasty mixture ofTo quickly solve the puzzle in Dina Dechmann’s lab, the shrew didn’t just need to learn where its meal was hidden. Something else astounding happened in its head. It had to regrow its own brain.
The young zoologist served in the Polish army, though he remained devoted to his academic work during the war. Captured by the Germans, he gave biology lectures at a prisoner-of-war camp. “We cannot get them to sleep,” she said. “It seems almost like a knockout state is not built in because they can’t afford to become unconscious because they’ll simply starve.”Shrews’ unorthodox strategy of reducing their brain power may help them save on energy during the winter, but it comes at a cost.
The notion that, for some animals, a smaller brain is a better one is a difficult idea for many people to accept, Dechmann said. She and colleagues received hate mail after publishing a study showing some bats evolved smaller brains to fly faster. Their paper was titled “Bigger is not always better.”
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