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 32-year-old British neuroscientist and writer. He obtained his PhD in Neurobiology from the Institute of Neurology, University College London (UCL). He then worked as a research scientist at the University of Washington, United States. He has written for the Guardian and the Wellcome Trust. His first book, In Pursuit of Memory, was longlisted for the Wellcome Prize and shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Prize.