Except perhaps for a few specific features, brain organization and early development of elephants and humans are extremely similar.
The skull, however, was flatter and more elongated that's the feature that has changed most since our days in Irhoud, likely in response to a series of genetic mutations that are known to have improved our brain organization, connectivity, and development.
It is, however, to suggest that although there may be other reasons to be a linguistic nativist, general considerations to do with brain organization or development as currently understood give no especial support to that position.
In my opinion, the next exciting frontier is the nervous system, how the brain works, how it develops, how the various components of the brain connect, how genes control its organization and development.
We then review some examples of the impact on cognition of individual variations in (1) brain structure, (2) brain functional organization and (3) brain damage.
In fact, it has been shown that steroid hormones influence human brain organization at critical stages of development, for example, at the early post-embryonic period, puberty and adolescence (McCarthy et al, 2009; Melcangi et al, 2011; Peper et al, 2011).
Handedness reflects brain organization (specifically, cerebral dominance) and offers a window into prenatal brain development.
Comparative studies of brain structure and development have revealed a general Bauplan, an outline of the fundamental large-scale architecture of the vertebrate brain, reflecting its basic functional organization.
Most brain development and most major brain organization for each child happens in those first three years of life.
