From the plains of the Pleistocene to the age of smartphones, the human brain has evolved but never forgotten its roots. Many of our instincts and quirks are echoes of our ancestors.

Modern humans, Neanderthals, and other recent relatives on our human family tree evolved bigger brains much more rapidly than earlier species, a new study of human brain evolution has found. The study ...

It wasn’t the size of human brains that distinguished people from apes, he theorized, but the way they were organized. He found a creative way to prove it. By Adam Nossiter Ralph Holloway, an ...

A 1.6-million-year-old Ethiopian skull blends ancestor and descendant features, rewriting the origin story of Homo erectus.

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) often strikes our most human traits, such as the ability to speak and to interact on social and emotional levels. Now, research led by Lorenzo Pasquini and William Seeley ...

The placenta and the hormones it produces may have played a crucial role in the evolution of the human brain, while also leading to the behavioral traits that have made human societies able to thrive ...

Researchers discovered that autism’s prevalence may be linked to human brain evolution. Specific neurons in the outer brain evolved rapidly, and autism-linked genes changed under natural selection.

"One Hand Clapping" draws from neuroscience, evolution, philosophy and a rich tapestry of cultural references to examine how ...

Researchers have used a new human reference genome, which includes many duplicated and repeat sequences left out of the original human genome draft, to identify genes that make the human brain ...

Could social bonds be the key to human big brains? A study of the fossil teeth of early Homo from Georgia dating back 1.77 million years reveals a prolonged childhood despite a small brain and an ...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be the result of millions of years of evolution. Rapid neuronal evolution in humans is likely ASD’s genetic cause, new research suggests. Though autism can cause ...