Main description:

This volume of Progress in Brain Research provides a synthetic source of information about state-of-the-art research that has important implications for the evolution of the brain and cognition in primates, including humans. This topic requires input from a variety of fields that are developing at an unprecedented pace: genetics, developmental neurobiology, comparative and functional neuroanatomy (at gross and microanatomical levels), quantitative neurobiology related to scaling factors that constrain brain organization and evolution, primate palaeontology (including paleoneurology), paleo-anthropology, comparative psychology, and behavioural evolutionary biology.

Written by internationally-renowned scientists, this timely volume will be of wide interest to students, scholars, science journalists, and a variety of experts who are interested in keeping track of the discoveries that are rapidly emerging about the evolution of the brain and cognition.

Contents:

Section I. Introduction

1. From tetrapods to primates: conserved developmental mechanisms in diverging ecological adaptations

F. Aboitiz and J.F. Montiel (Santiago, Chile)

Section II. Genes and Development

2. Genetic correlates of the evolving primate brain

E.J. Vallender (Southborough, MA, USA)

3. Cerebral cortical development in rodents and primates

Z. Molnar and G. Clowry (Oxford, UK)

4. Embracing covariation in brain evolution: large brains,

extended development and flexible primate social systems

C.J. Charvet and B.L. Finlay (Ithaca, NY, USA)

Section III. Comparative Neuroanatomy

5. The evolution of neocortex in primates

J.H. Kaas (Nashville, TN, USA)

6. Lateralization of the human brain

M.C. Corballis (Auckland, New Zealand)

7. The insular cortex: a review

R. Nieuwenhuys (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

8. The missing link: the evolution of the primate cerebellum

C.E. MacLeod (Vancouver, BC, Canada)

Section IV. Human Brain Evolution

9. Human prefrontal cortex: evolution, development

and pathology

K. Teffer and K. Semendeferi (La Jolla, CA, USA)

10. Minicolumn size and human cortex

D.P. Buxhoeveden (Columbia, SC, USA)

11. Human brain evolution writ large and small.

C.C. Sherwood, A.L. Bauernfeind, S. Bianchi,

M.A. Raghanti and P.R. Hof (Washington, DC, USA)

12. Hominin paleoneurology: where are we now?

D. Falk (Santa Fe, NM, USA)

13. Evolution of hominin cranial ontogeny

C.P.E. Zollikofer (Zurich, Switzerland)

14. Hominins and the emergence of the modern human brain

A.A. de Sousa and E. Cunha (Coimbra, Portugal)

Section V. Theories of Neural Organization

15. Neuronal scaling rules for primate brains: the primate advantage

S. Herculano-Houzel (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

16. Self-organization and interareal networks in the primate cortex

H. Kennedy and C. Dehay (Bron, France)

17. Neural wiring optimization

C. Cherniak (College Park, MD, USA)

18. Design principles of the human brain: an evolutionary perspective

M.A. Hofman (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Sections VI. Cognition: From Neuron to Behavior

19. Primate encephalization

L. Lefebvre (Montreal, QC, Canada)

20. Evolution of brain and intelligence in primates

G. Roth and U. Dicke (Bremen, Germany)

21. Evolution of human emotion: a view through fear

J.E. LeDoux (New York, NY, USA)

22. Evolution of brain and language

P.T. Schoenemann (Bloomington, IN, USA)