Sir John Eccles, a distinguished scientist and Nobel Prize winner who has devoted his scientific life to the study of the mammalian brain, tells the story of how we came to be, not only as animals at the end of the hominid evolutionary line, but also as human persons possessed of reflective consciousness.

In this book, Nobel Prize-winner, Sir John Eccles, tells the story of how man came to be as he is, not only as an animal at the end of the hominid evolutionary line, but also as a human being possessed of reflective consciousness.

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

“A History of the Human Brain is a unique, enlightening, and provocative account of the most significant question we can ask about ourselves.” —Richard Wrangham, author of The Goodness Paradox Just 125,000 years ago, humanity was on a path to extinction, until a dramatic shift occurred. We used our mental abilities to navigate new terrain and changing climates. We hunted, foraged, tracked tides, shucked oysters—anything we could do to survive. Before long, our species had pulled itself back from the brink and was on more stable ground. What saved us? The human brain—and its evolutionary journey is unlike any other. In A History of the Human Brain, Bret Stetka takes us on this far-reaching journey, explaining exactly how our most mysterious organ developed. From the brain’s improbable, watery beginnings to the marvel that sits in the head of Home sapiens today, Stetka covers an astonishing progression, even tackling future brainy frontiers such as epigenetics and CRISPR. Clearly and expertly told, this intriguing account is the story of who we are. By examining the history of the brain, we can begin to piece together what it truly means to be human.

"Geary also explores a number of issues that are of interest in modern society, including how general intelligence relates to academic achievement, occupational status, and income."--BOOK JACKET.

Religions and mythologies from around the world teach that God or gods created humans. Atheist, humanist, and materialist critics, meanwhile, have attempted to turn theology on its head, claiming that religion is a human invention. In this book, E. Fuller Torrey draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to propose a startling answer to the ultimate question. Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods locates the origin of gods within the human brain, arguing that religious belief is a by-product of evolution. Based on an idea originally proposed by Charles Darwin, Torrey marshals evidence that the emergence of gods was an incidental consequence of several evolutionary factors. Using data ranging from ancient skulls and artifacts to brain imaging, primatology, and child development studies, this book traces how new cognitive abilities gave rise to new behaviors. For instance, autobiographical memory, the ability to project ourselves backward and forward in time, gave Homo sapiens a competitive advantage. However, it also led to comprehension of mortality, spurring belief in an alternative to death. Torrey details the neurobiological sequence that explains why the gods appeared when they did, connecting archaeological findings including clothing, art, farming, and urbanization to cognitive developments. This book does not dismiss belief but rather presents religious belief as an inevitable outcome of brain evolution. Providing clear and accessible explanations of evolutionary neuroscience, Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods will shed new light on the mechanics of our deepest mysteries.

Longlisted for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award A leading neuroscientist offers a history of the evolution of the brain from unicellular organisms to the complexity of animals and human beings today Renowned neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux digs into the natural history of life on earth to provide a new perspective on the similarities between us and our ancestors in deep time. This page-turning survey of the whole of terrestrial evolution sheds new light on how nervous systems evolved in animals, how the brain developed, and what it means to be human. In The Deep History of Ourselves, LeDoux argues that the key to understanding human behavior lies in viewing evolution through the prism of the first living organisms. By tracking the chain of the evolutionary timeline he shows how even the earliest single-cell organisms had to solve the same problems we and our cells have to solve each day. Along the way, LeDoux explores our place in nature, how the evolution of nervous systems enhanced the ability of organisms to survive and thrive, and how the emergence of what we humans understand as consciousness made our greatest and most horrendous achievements as a species possible.

Imitation guides the behaviour of a range of species. Scientific advances in the study of imitation at multiple levels from neurons to behaviour have far-reaching implications for cognitive science, neuroscience, and evolutionary and developmental psychology. This volume, first published in 2002, provides a summary of the research on imitation in both Europe and America, including work on infants, adults, and nonhuman primates, with speculations about robotics. A special feature of the book is that it provides a concrete instance of the links between developmental psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. It showcases how an interdisciplinary approach to imitation can illuminate long-standing problems in the brain sciences, including consciousness, self, perception-action coding, theory of mind, and intersubjectivity. The book addresses what it means to be human and how we get that way.

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. 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

"In this book, Peter Robin Hiesinger explores historical and contemporary attempts to understand the information needed to make biological and artificial neural networks. Developmental neurobiologists and computer scientists with an interest in artificial intelligence - driven by the promise and resources of biomedical research on the one hand, and by the promise and advances of computer technology on the other - are trying to understand the fundamental principles that guide the generation of an intelligent system. Yet, though researchers in these disciplines share a common interest, their perspectives and approaches are often quite different. The book makes the case that "the information problem" underlies both fields, driving the questions that are driving forward the frontiers, and aims to encourage cross-disciplinary communication and understanding, to help both fields make progress. The questions that challenge researchers in these fields include the following. How does genetic information unfold during the years-long process of human brain development, and can this be a short-cut to create human-level artificial intelligence? Is the biological brain just messy hardware that can be improved upon by running learning algorithms in computers? Can artificial intelligence bypass evolutionary programming of "grown" networks? These questions are tightly linked, and answering them requires an understanding of how information unfolds algorithmically to generate functional neural networks. Via a series of closely linked "discussions" (fictional dialogues between researchers in different disciplines) and pedagogical "seminars," the author explores the different challenges facing researchers working on neural networks, their different perspectives and approaches, as well as the common ground and understanding to be found amongst those sharing an interest in the development of biological brains and artificial intelligent systems"--