The Workings of the Brain: Development, Memory, and Perception: Readings from Scientific American Magazine

I particularly like the article by H.J. Jerison in this book, ie, Paleoneurology and the Evolution of Mind. Brain weight is plotted against body weight for living and archaic mammals and reptiles. Brain weight tends to vary with 2/3rd power of body weight, with vertical displacements for mammals and again for primates. Living reptiles show similar brain weights as archaic ones. There is a four-fold increase in brain size from archaic reptile to archaic mammal, and then mammalian encephalization holds steady for another 100 million years. In the last 50 million years there is another four-fold increase in brain size from archaic mammals to living mammals. The emergence of improved hearing and smell is postulated as the reason for an enlarged brain in early mammals over their reptile ancestors.

It is an excellent synthesis that integrate the wide field of Brain Science based in some deep insights only comparable to what Newton did in Principia Mathematica. It is a good perspective made by a Scientist who always has been made enphasis in a realist application of the Physical, Chemical and Engineering principles of Neuroscience.