Overview

When did the first vertebrates emerge, and how did they differ from their invertebrate ancestors? When did vertebrates evolve jaws, paired fins, pattern vision, or a neocortex? How have evolutionary innovations such as these impacted vertebrate behavior and success? Georg Striedter and R. Glenn Northcutt answer these fundamental questions about all major vertebrate lineages. Highlighting the key innovations of each major taxonomic group, they review how evolutionary changes in vertebrate genetics, anatomy, and physiology are reflected in the nervous system. Brains Through Time examines how vertebrate nervous systems evolved in conjunction with other organ systems and the planet's ecology. Surveying an enormous range of information on genes and proteins, sensory and motor systems, central neural circuits, physiology, and animal behavior, the authors reconstruct the major changes that occurred as vertebrates emerged and then diversified. In the process, listeners are transported back in time to key stages of vertebrate evolution, notably the origin of vertebrates, the evolution of paired fins and jaws, the transition to life on land, and the origins of warm-blooded mammals and birds.

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9781665177108

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Tom Perkins is one of Silicon Valley's pioneers. His venture capital firm has financed many famous companies, including Genentech, Compaq, Amazon, AOL, and Google. Perkins lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and has a medieval manor house, complete with moat, in East Sussex, England. R. Glenn Northcutt is a professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Unviersity of California, San Diego. Georg F. Striedter is a professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Neurobiology: A Functional Approach and Principles of Brain Evolution.

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