How the Human Brain Tackles Modern Problems It Didn't Evolve to Solve

Humans manage to problem solve each and every day, dealing with modern technologies that had no role in the evolution of our ancestors. Now, scientists have discovered that our ability to respond to the challenges of a fast-changing culture comes from our brains' ability to flexibly combine and repurpose the neural resources that evolution provided us.

Evolutionary repurposing is exhibited in all animals. It essentially describes how evolution uses what's provided to solve a novel problem. While it happens slowly over lifetimes through natural selection, it can be huge in terms of how we adapt to new technologies. For example, we evolved spatial/distance representation in the brain; however, in modern society we have repurposed this ability and also applied it to our concept of "closeness" to people in our social network.

"The repurposing allows us to do a lot with a little," said Thalia Wheatley, co-author of the new study, in a news release. "Our brains have the flexibility to form new combinations of pre-existing computations and deploy these computations rapidly and flexibly in new contexts."

The other two forms of repurposing that are found in humans rely on social cognitive abilities. Cultural repurposing refers to the process by which cultural inventions, such as reading and belief systems, are acquired in a lifetime by co-opting preexisting brain circuits. Instrumental repurposing happens not only within a lifetime, but on the fly. For example, it's how we intentionally and creatively push our old evolutionary buttons to influence our own and other's behaviors.

The researchers examined the three types of repurposing in humans. More specifically, they examined how old evolutionary neural resources can be used for modern day problems.

"Understanding what is in our cognitive toolbox is a first step to understanding how we can most effectively use these tools to address modern problems that our brains did not evolve to solve," said Wheatley.

In the end, the researchers found that humans can adaptively manage their cognitive abilities to address modern day problems.

The findings are published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

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