How the Mind Changed: A Human History of our Evolving Brain

Description

No other life form on the planet has generated a brain like ours. How did a bundle of cells weighing just 1.2 kg give rise to conscious, self-aware beings capable of understanding time, language, mathematics and music, of exploring outer space and sequencing their own DNA? The answer to such questions is a 7 million year saga. How the Mind Changed is the definitive book on human brain evolution: a sweeping natural history. Beginning with the first primate brain and the rise of our present-day, large human brain, it will describe the remarkable origin of our species' most mysterious organ, how it has developed, and how it will change in the future. To study the brain is to study the essence of what makes us human.

Joseph Jebelli is a neuroscientist and a writer. He received a PhD in neuroscience from University College London for his work on the cell biology of neurodegenerative diseases, then worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Washington, Seattle. His much acclaimed first book, In Pursuit of Memory, was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize and longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize. He lives in London.

How did humans develop such a runaway mind? Joseph Jebelli masterfully illuminates the neurobiological road by which we arrived, and where it might reach from here -- David Eagleman, bestselling author of Livewired and Incognito Jebelli writes with aplomb and an eye for arresting asides... This is a slim, accessible and thought-provoking book - a springboard to further reading * The Times * An eye for thrilling details makes his approachable, sometimes provocative book an aptly mind-expanding experience for the curious reader * The Mail on Sunday *