The Evolution of the Brain

The evolution of the brain began in relatively simple creatures, possibly for the purpose of coordinating digestion and other basic physiological processes. Hundreds of millions of years later, the brain evolved into the modern versions we see across the animal kingdom today. Scientists believe that humans and all other mammals evolved from fish, so by looking at the differences between human and fish brains, we can infer some of the evolutionary changes that occurred over those ~370 million years. Much of what makes our human brains unique appears to be in the cerebral cortex, though other brain structures are no doubt important in what makes us human. Finally, many of the quirks of our behavior and mental life, especially those surrounding sex and sex differences, can be explained partly by our evolutionary history. This video is a brief exploration of brain evolution. It addresses questions like, Why did the brain evolve? How did the brain change over evolutionary time? What makes the human brain un