brain evolution
number of breaks: 3
Food for thought: recipe for bigger brains
There are hundreds of species of primates spread all across the globe that vary greatly in both brain size and intelligence. At the extremes, the great apes (our closest living relatives) have brains that are slightly larger than those of newborn humans, while mouse lemurs... click to read more
The mutation that allowed our brain to grow
During human evolution, one of the most remarkable events was the expansion of the upper layer of the brain: the so-called neocortex. This event took place about 2 million years ago and allowed us to develop the cognitive abilities that characterize modern day humans. In... click to read more
Where is the Engram?
The author Tonegawa won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987.
The human brain is composed of over 100 billion electrically-active brain cells (called neurons), and what makes the neuron a special cell type is that it sends out extensions (known as axons) that... click to read more
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