Page 170 - (DK) How to be a GENIUS?

G
G
GOT O
HOW WE GOT OUR
OW WE GOT
G
The most primitive animals do
not have brains. A jellyfish has
only a network of nerve fibers
N
S
I
BR
RA
BRAINS central control area to direct
A
extending over its body, with no
ce
its actions. But most animals
t
have brains of some kind to
h
process sensory signals and
en
enable them to respond to
their surroundings. The part
of the brain that does this
processing has become hugely
Seensory tent
Se en so tacles enlarged in the human brain.
a
mation that
Gather inform
must be proc cessed by a
r
brain of som e kind, One part in particular—the
mitive.
hoowever prim
prefrontal cortex—has expanded
d
to give us our capacity for
abstract thought.

Human
ads and tail
Hea ls
e
Simpl
not
Simple animals lik e jell yfis do not
sh
a
animals
e
animals like jellyfish do
hav
e
ey
br
no
hav e br ains bec ause the h ve no
ains bec
e
have brains because they havav
th
t
ause
heads or tails. The evolution of the
heads or t
olutio
v
ails. The e
pment
gan with the de
v
el
brain began with the developopm
the
of a front end to the e body,
he
t
a
o
ont
of
body
“fr
end”
t
because once an animal starts
art
mal s
o
using only one end of itself to
nd of itself t
rld, its sense
explore its world, its sense organs
become grouped at that end.
ouped at that e
e or
gans nee
The sense organs need a nerve A large part of this owl’s brain is dedicated to Monkey
decoding the signals from its eyes and ears—
es
center to process their signals and making it an extremely efficient hunter.
s t
o pr
oc
truction
s
send instructions to the rest of the f the Intellect central
e
has a b
en a sna
v
body. So even a snail has a brain. The part of the brain that seems to be the
t
Super senses main intellectual processing centre is tthe
For most animals, the main job of bulge at the front, behind your foreheaad—the
the brain is to process data from the prefrontal cortex. This uses informatioon from
senses. This function is often more the senses to form judgments, make choices,
c
highly developed than it is in humans. and predict future events. It has expannded in
A dog has a much greater ability than size throughout our evolution, pushinng the
humans to identify scents, and some human forehead forward compared tto our
owls can use sound alone to pinpoint monkeylike ancestors. However, a stuudy of
mice in total darkness. The brains of the brains of baboons—large monkeeys—has
these animals have a lot of mental shown that the human prefrontal corrtex is
processing power, but compared to not much bigger than theirs relative to the
e
us, it is used in different ways. rest of the brain. So it is likely that its
t
structure has also changed.
168
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