Sensory-motor control, cognition and brain evolution: exploring the links

Drawing on recent findings from evolutionary anthropology and neuroscience, professor Barton will lead us through the amazing story of the evolution of human cognition. Usingstatistical, phylogenetic analyses that tease apart the variation associated with different neural systems and due to different selection pressures, he will be addressing intriguing questions like ‘Why are there so many neurons in the cerebellum?’, ‘Is the neocortex the ‘intelligent’ bit of the brain?’, and ‘What explains that the recognition by humans of emotional expressions is disrupted by trancranial magnetic stimulation of the somatosensory cortex?’ Could, as professor Barton suggests, the cerebellum -modestly concealed beneath the volumetrically dominating neocortex and largely ignored- turn out to be the Cinderella of the study of brain evolution?