A new expert opinion from the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) examines the evolving role of angiography-derived physiology (ADP), a wire-free method for coronary physiologic assessment that applies computational modeling or artificial intelligence (AI) to standard coronary angiographic images for the assessment and management of coronary artery disease. 

The ASU study challenges the idea that early human societies were largely egalitarian, arguing instead that inequality in social influence has deep evolutionary roots. Drawing on archaeological evidence, psychological experiments and evolutionary simulations, researchers found that humans naturally form “prestige hierarchies” in which individuals gain influence not through dominance or aggression, but because others perceive them as skilled, knowledgeable, or successful. In experiments, people consistently preferred to copy individuals who were already popular—sometimes even more than those who were most accurate—creating a rapid “snowball effect” where a few individuals came to dominate group decisions. The findings suggest that following prestige likely helped humans learn efficiently and survive over generations, helping explain why similar patterns of unequal influence persist today in settings ranging from workplaces and politics to social media, even if such hierarchies are not always beneficial.

Marinka Zitnik outlines the challenges of medical AI — and potential solutions