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 ...

The human brain grew from a survival machine into the most complex organ on Earth—fueling language, culture, and technology.

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.

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 ...

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 ...

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 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 ...

A groundbreaking international study changes the view that exposure to the toxic metal lead is largely a post-industrial phenomenon. The research reveals that our human ancestors were periodically ...

"Consciousness," although challenging to define, can be thought of as a first-person awareness of one's surroundings and oneself. You sense the world through your eyes, nose, ears and hands, and track ...