Getting inside the mind (and up the nose) of our ancient ancestors

Reorganisation of the brain and sense organs could be the key to the evolutionary success of vertebrates, one of the great puzzles in evolutionary biology, according to a paper by an international team of researchers, published today in Nature.

The study claims to have solved this scientific riddle by studying the brain of a 400 million year old fossilized jawless fish – an evolutionary intermediate between the living jawless and jawed vertebrates (animals with backbones, such as humans).

http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2011/7860.html