The Inductive Brain in Development and Evolution provides readers with a substantial biological education on animal nervous systems and their role in the development, adaptation, homeostasis, and evolution of species. The book begins by delving into the embryonic development of the brain and then discusses epigenetic information and neural activity post-birth. It then analyzes the inductive brain's neural and brain control of such factors like myogenesis, bone development, sensory organs, metamorphosis in vertebrates and invertebrates, and wing development in insects. The book closes with an examination of phenotypic evolution in neural control, mechanisms, and drivers of animal brains. The Inductive Brain in Development and Evolution will offer evolutionary biologists, specifically those researching development, adaptation, and evolution of animals, a comprehensive text that covers a variety of valuable topics. - Presents the first book devoted to the inductive role of the brain in development, in adaptation, and in the evolution processes in animals - Examines the central nervous system (CNS) from embryonic to adult life stages - Provides detailed evidence to investigate the role of the CNS in molding animal morphology and life histories

Development of the Nervous System, Second Edition has been thoroughly revised and updated since the publication of the First Edition. It presents a broad outline of neural development principles as exemplified by key experiments and observations from past and recent times. The text is organized along a development pathway from the induction of the neural primordium to the emergence of behavior. It covers all the major topics including the patterning and growth of the nervous system, neuronal determination, axonal navigation and targeting, synapse formation and plasticity, and neuronal survival and death. This new text reflects the complete modernization of the field achieved through the use of model organisms and the intensive application of molecular and genetic approaches. The original, artist-rendered drawings from the First Edition have all been redone and colorized to so that the entire text is in full color. This new edition is an excellent textbook for undergraduate and graduate level students in courses such as Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology, Biochemistry, Pharmacology, and Developmental Biology. - Updates information including all the new developments made in the field since the first edition - Now in full color throughout, with the original, artist-rendered drawings from the first edition completely redone, revised, colorized, and updated

"A work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts."—New York Times Book Review This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.

Nongenetic Information and Evolution investigates the origin and nature of nongenetic information and its role in the mechanisms of evolutionary change. This book opens with an introduction to the theoretical background and forms of nongenetic information, alongside its relationship with genetic information. It then explores nongenetic information across the biological kingdoms, including animals, nonneural organisms, plants, and unicellulars. It also covers epigenetics as a form of nongenetic information, exploring DNA methylation, histone modifications, chromatin remodeling, and miRNA expression in this context. This book closes with a discussion of nongenetic information in evolution, considering evidence demonstrating its inheritance and hereditary impact. This book provides a detailed overview of the origin and evolutionary impact of nongenetic inheritance, delivering a basis for further understanding the occurrence of hereditary phenomena and transgenerational phenotypic changes that do not involve genes. This is a useful reference for researchers in the field of epigenetics, evolutionary biology, developmental biology, and cellular and molecular biology. - Explores the origin and causes of nongenetic information - Considers a broad range of biological systems from unicellular living organisms to highly complex organisms - Discusses the impact of nongenetic inheritance in the context of evolution

This is the first and only book, so far, to deal with the causal basis of evolution from an epigenetic view. By revealing the epigenetic "user" of the "genetic toolkit", this book demonstrates the primacy of epigenetic mechanisms and epigenetic information in generating evolutionary novelties. The author convincingly supports his theory with a host of examples from the most varied fields of biology, by emphasizing changes in developmental pathways as the basic source of evolutionary change in metazoans. - Original and thought provoking--a radically new theory that overcomes the present difficulties of the theory of evolution - Is the first and only theory that uses epigenetic mechanisms and principles for explaining evolution of metazoans - Takes an integrative approach and shows a wide range of learning

A discussion of the neural crest and neural crest cells, dealing with their discovery, their embryological and evolutionary origins, their cellular derivatives - in both agnathan and jawed vertebrates or gnathostomes - and the broad topics of migration and differentiation in normal development. The book also considers what goes wrong when development is misdirected by mutations, or by exposure of embryos to exogenous agents such as drugs, alcohol, or excess vitamin A, and includes discussions of tumours and syndromes and birth defects involving neural crest cells.

Although evolutionary developmental biology is a new field, its origins lie in the last century; the search for connections between embryonic development (ontogeny) and evolutionary change (phylogeny) has been a long one. Evolutionary developmental biology is however more than just a fusion of the fields of developmental and evolutionary biology. It forges a unification of genomic, developmental, organismal, population and natural selection approaches to evolutionary change. It is concerned with how developmental processes evolve; how evolution produces novel structures, functions and behaviours; and how development, evolution and ecology are integrated to bring about and stabilize evolutionary change. The previous edition of this title, published in 1992, defined the terms and laid out the field for evolutionary developmental biology. This field is now one of the most active and fast growing within biology and this is reflected in this second edition, which is more than twice the length of the original and brought completely up to date. There are new chapters on major transitions in animal evolution, expanded coverage of comparative embryonic development and the inclusion of recent advances in genetics and molecular biology. The book is divided into eight parts which: place evolutionary developmental biology in the historical context of the search for relationships between development and evolution; detail the historical background leading to evolutionary embryology; explore embryos in development and embryos in evolution; discuss the relationship between embryos, evolution, environment and ecology; discuss the dilemma for homology of the fact that development evolves; deal with the importance of understanding how embryos measure time and place both through development and evolutionarily through heterochrony and heterotrophy; and set out the principles and processes that underlie evolutionary developmental biology. With over one hundred illustrations and photographs, extensive cross-referencing between chapters and boxes for ancillary material, this latest edition will be of immense interest to graduate and advanced undergraduate students in cell, developmental and molecular biology, and in zoology, evolution, ecology and entomology; in fact anyone with an interest in this new and increasingly important and interdisciplinary field which unifies biology.

Essential Developmental Biology ist eine umfassende und reich illustrierte Einführung in sämtliche Aspekte der Entwicklungsbiologie. Die 3. Auflage dieses beliebten und zugänglichen Lehrbuchs wurde erweitert und aktualisiert. Die begleitende Website bietet darüber hinaus Lehr- und Lernmaterialien für Studenten und Dozenten, animierte Entwicklungsprozesse, eine Fotogalerie ausgewählter Modellorganismen und sämtliche Abbildungen usw. der Printversion zum Herunterladen. Dieses evidenzbasierte Lehrbuch liefert durchgängig Belege für zentrale Schlussfolgerungen und ist ein Muss sowohl für Einführungs- als auch Aufbaukurse der Entwicklungsbiologie.

Written by an international panel of recognized leaders in the field, Neural Crest Induction and Differentiation discusses all aspects of modern neural crest biology from its evolutionary significance to its specification, migration, plasticity and contribution to multiple lineages of the vertebrate body, to the pathologies associated with abnormal neural crest development and function. Abundant color figures enhance the text providing clear and attractive illustrations of central issues and concepts.