《大脑进化简史》内容简介

　　这一个关于我们伟大而复杂的大脑如何形成与进化的故事。就在十二万五千年前，人类却正处于灭绝的道路上。那时候的人们为了生存做任何能做的一切：打猎、觅食、追踪潮汐、剥牡蛎……不久之后，人类这种物种真的就从灭绝的边缘被拉了回来，并处于更稳定的发展进程中。是什么拯救了我们？是人类的大脑。

　　作者将人类学、动物学、博物学、社会学、心理学、遗传学和古基因组学融合在一起，展示了我们大脑精彩、伟大、意义非凡的进化史，不仅包括人类大脑自地球上生命诞生以来是如何产生和进化的，还有随着神经科学和技术在21世纪的发展，它可能会走向何方。

　　作者：布雷特·斯特卡

　　2005年获得弗吉尼亚大学医学博士学位，2006年在纽约西奈山医学院的生物精神病学实验室完成博士后工作。曾是《医景》（Medscape，WebMD的子公司）主编，美国国家电视台（NPR）和《环球科学》杂志的定期撰稿人，并且给Wired、Slate和PopularMechanics撰写关于大脑和基因组学、神经科学、精神病学及进化学的文章。

A Brief History of Brain Evolution

This is the story of how our great and complex brain came into being and evolved. Just 125,000 years ago, humanity was on the road to extinction. People in those days did everything they could to survive: hunting, foraging, tracking the tides, shucking oysters... Before long, the species was literally pulled back from the brink of extinction and placed on a more stable course of development. What saved us? It's the human brain.

The authors bring together anthropology, zoology, natural history, sociology, psychology, genetics, and paleogenomics to show the wonderful, great, and significant evolutionary history of our brain, including not only how the human brain arose and evolved since the birth of life on Earth, but also where it may be headed as neuroscience and technology advance in the 21st century.

By Brett Stecka

He received his M.D. from the University of Virginia in 2005 and completed his postdoctoral work in the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York in 2006. He was editor in chief of Medscape (a subsidiary of WebMD), a regular contributor to NPR and Global Science, and has written for Wired, Slate, and PopularMechanics on brain and genomics, neuroscience, psychiatry, and evolution.