Although
the
brains of different species share myriad similarities, they
also differ in numerous respects. Our laboratory aims to
understand how and why those species differences arose. We
ask, for instance, at what point in development the brains
of parrots and songbirds become larger, relative to body
size, than the brains of other birds. The aim is to
determine what evolutionary changes in the cellular and
molecular mechanisms of development underlie the species
differences in adult brains. We are also starting to to
manipulate development experimentally in order to mimic
some adult species differences in brains, and thus to test
our hypotheses about how evolution modified neural
development.
