Evolution and the Nervous System

Undergraduate / Graduate

Evolutionary neuroscience has traditionally focused on the neural bases of animal behavior (neuroethology) and employed the methods of comparative anatomy, cellular neurophysiology and behavioral neuropsychology. This course will approach neuroethology from a modern evolutionary perspective, one that integrates findings from genomics, molecular developmental biology and paleontology with insights from neuroethology. Our exploration will include the controversies over the evolutionary origin of neurons and centralized brains, the independent solutions across taxa to processing ecologically important sensory information, and recent insights into the evolution of the neocortex.