Evolutionary Neuroscience

Kaas's major research interests are in the evolution and functional organization of sensory-perceptual, cognitive, and motor systems, especially in primates, in the development of these systems, and in how these systems are plastic in response to injury and use in developing and adult brains. Special research emphasis is placed on studying visual, auditory and somatosensory systems, but current studies are also concerned with multimodal and sensorimotor integration in parietal and frontal cortex. Research questions are addressed with a range of electrophysiological, neuroanatomical, biochemical, and behavioral techniques. Teaching interests are in neuroscience, biological psychology, and animal behavior.Current Research:•Single and multielectrode recordings of neurons in primary somatosensory cortex of monkeys.•Optical imaging of functional subdivisions of visual cortex in monkeys.•Studies of anatomical connections of neural networks in brain systems devoted to somatosensory, visual, auditory, motor, and gustatory functions in monkeys.•Studies of brain architecture.

• Part 1: History, Concepts, and Theory1. History of Ideas on Brain Evolution2. Phylogenetic Character Reconstruction3. The role of endocasts in the study of brain evolution4. Invertebrate origins of vertebrate nervous systemsPart 2: The Brains of Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles and Birds5. The nervous systems of jawless vertebrates6. The brains of cartilaginous fishes7. The organization of the central nervous system of amphibians8. The brains of reptiles and birds9. Function and evolution of the reptilian cerebral cortex10. The cerebellum of non-mammalian vertebratesPart 3: Early Mammals and Subsequent Adaptations11. Emergence of mammals12. Mammalian Evolution: The phylogenetic story13. Organization of neocortex in early mammals14. What modern mammals teach us about the cellular composition of early brains and mechanisms of brain evolution15. Consistencies and variances in the anatomical organization of aspects of the mammalian brain stem16. Comparative anatomy of glial cells in mammals17. The monotreme nervous system18. Evolution of flight and echolocation in bats19. Carnivore brains: Effects of sociality on inter- and intra-specific comparisons of regional brain volumesPart 4: Primates20. Phylogeny of primates21. Expansion of the cortical sheet in primates22. Scaling up the simian primate cortex: A conserved pattern of expansion across brain sizes23. Evolution of visual cortex in primates24. Evolution of subcortical pathways to the extrastriate cortex25. Evolved mechanisms of high-level visual perception in primates26. Evolution of parietal cortex in primates27. Evolution of parietal-frontal networks in primates28. Evolution of the prefrontal cortex in early primates and anthropoidsPart 5: Evolution of Human Brains29. Introduction to human brain evolutionary studies30. Human evolutionary history31. Evolution of human life history32. The fossil evidence of human brain evolution33. Remarkable, but not special: What human brains are made of34. Timing of brain maturation, early experience, and the human social niche35. Human association cortex: Expanded, untethered, neoteneous, and plastic36. On the evolution of the frontal eye field: comparisons of monkeys, apes and humans37. The evolution of auditory cortex in humans38. Language evolution39. The search for human cognitive specializations