Evolution of Nervous Systems

Kaas's major research interests are in the evolution and functional organization of sensory-perceptual, cognitive, and motor systems, especially in primates, in the development of these systems, and in how these systems are plastic in response to injury and use in developing and adult brains. Special research emphasis is placed on studying visual, auditory and somatosensory systems, but current studies are also concerned with multimodal and sensorimotor integration in parietal and frontal cortex. Research questions are addressed with a range of electrophysiological, neuroanatomical, biochemical, and behavioral techniques. Teaching interests are in neuroscience, biological psychology, and animal behavior.

Current Research:
.Single and multielectrode recordings of neurons in primary somatosensory cortex of monkeys.
.Optical imaging of functional subdivisions of visual cortex in monkeys.
.Studies of anatomical connections of neural networks in brain systems devoted to somatosensory, visual, auditory, motor, and gustatory functions in monkeys.
.Studies of brain architecture.Dr. Rubenstein is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. He also serves as a Nina Ireland Distinguished Professor in Child Psychiatry at the Nina Ireland Laboratory of Developmental Neurobiology. His research focuses on the regulatory genes that orchestrate development of the forebrain. Dr. Rubenstein's lab has demonstrated the role of specific genes in regulating neuronal specification, differentiation, migration and axon growth during embryonic development and on through adult life. His work may help to explain some of the mechanisms underlying human neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.

Evolution of Nervous Systems, Second Edition, Four Volume Set is a unique, major reference which offers the gold standard for those interested both in evolution and nervous systems. All biology only makes sense when seen in the light of evolution, and this is especially true for the nervous system. All animals have nervous systems that mediate their behaviors, many of them species specific, yet these nervous systems all evolved from the simple nervous system of a common ancestor. To understand these nervous systems, we need to know how they vary and how this variation emerged in evolution.

In the first edition of this important reference work, over 100 distinguished neuroscientists assembled the current state-of-the-art knowledge on how nervous systems have evolved throughout the animal kingdom. This second edition remains rich in detail and broad in scope, outlining the changes in brain and nervous system organization that occurred from the first invertebrates and vertebrates, to present day fishes, reptiles, birds, mammals, and especially primates, including humans.

The book also includes wholly new content, fully updating the chapters in the previous edition and offering brand new content on current developments in the field. Each of the volumes has been carefully restructured to offer expanded coverage of non-mammalian taxa, mammals, primates, and the human nervous system.

The basic principles of brain evolution are discussed, as are mechanisms of change. The reader can select from chapters on highly specific topics or those that provide an overview of current thinking and approaches, making this an indispensable work for students and researchers alike.

Chapters included in four main topic areas:

• Early Nervous Systems: Their Evolution in Invertebrates, Fish, Reptiles and Birds
• The Nervous System of Early Mammals and their Evolution
• The Nervous Systems of Non-Human Primates
• The Evolution of the Human Brain: Apes and other Ancestors

Individual titles include:

Invertebrate origins of vertebrate nervous systems The nervous systems of jawless vertebrates The Brains of Cartilaginous Fishes The Brains of Teleost Fishes Lungfish Nervous Systems The Brains of Amphibians The emergence of mammals A new mammalian brain ontology based on developmental gene expression Mammalian evolution: the phylogenetics story The early mammalian brain Evolution of the mammalian olfactory system The phylogeny of primates What can the fossil record tell us about evolutionary changes to the primate brain Cellular composition, cortical morphology and developmental mechanisms that give rise to a larger neocortex with diverse cell types Cell composition in primates Scaling up the simian primate cortex: a conserved pattern of expansion across brain sizes Evolution and development of cortical cell types in primates Evolutionary-developmental aspects of cortical connectivity Human Brain Evolution: A History of Ideas and Methods Human evolutionary history Evolution of human life history Energetics, life history, and human brain evolution The fossil evidence of human brain evolution Differences in brain organization between Neandertals and modern humans Evolution of the human genome and its relationship to brain evolution Molecular Evolution and Phenotypic Change Evolution of brain systems for social cognition Evolution of the Human Brain: Design without a Designer The evolution of visual-motor areas of the frontal cortex of humans--comparisons of monkeys and humans. Evolution of Language