Cerebral blood flow rates in recent great apes are greater than in species that had equal or larger brains.

Brain metabolic rate (MR) is linked mainly to the cost of synaptic activity, so may be a better correlate of cognitive ability than brain size alone. Among primates, the sizes of arterial foramina in recent and fossil skulls can be used to evaluate brain blood flow rate, which is proportional to brain MR. We use this approach to calculate flow rate in the internal carotid arteries , which supply most of the primate cerebrum.

Correction to 'Fossil skulls reveal that blood flow rate to the brain increased faster than brain volume during human evolution'.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1098/rsos.160305.

Fossil skulls reveal that blood flow rate to the brain increased faster than brain volume during human evolution.

The evolution of human cognition has been inferred from anthropological discoveries and estimates of brain size from fossil skulls. A more direct measure of cognition would be cerebral metabolic rate, which is proportional to cerebral blood flow rate (perfusion). The hominin cerebrum is supplied almost exclusively by the internal carotid arteries.