Elephants have bigger brains than humans. So why are we more intelligent? Suzana Herculano-Houzel tells how her ability to count neurons gives us a radical new understanding of brain biology. Her science is convincing, fun, and inspiring. The Human Advantage is a game-changer. -- Richard Wrangham, author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human In this highly readable and entertaining book, Herculano-Houzel summarizes her unique and important body of work. Her numerous discoveries regarding the number of neurons in animal and human brains lead her to conclude that human brains are fairly typical primate brains, though they are unusually large. As fascinating as the science is her vivid account of both her research adventures and her challenges. -- Georg Striedter, Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine; author of Principles of Brain Evolution and Neurobiology: A Functional Approach Beginning 1.5 million years ago with Homo erectus, Suzana Herculano-Houzel convincingly concludes that the human brain, a primate brain, owes its cognitive abilities to the number of neurons in the cerebral cortex. Engagingly and accessibly, she expands upon Wrangham's and Aiello's hypotheses that the brain was 'fed' by calories from cooked foods. -- Frances Burton, Professor Emerita, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto; author of Fire: The Spark that Ignited Human Evolution
Suzana Herculano-Houzel is Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Biological Sciences and Associate Director for Communications of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute at Vanderbilt University.
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