Why has the basic architecture of the vertebrate brain remained essentially unchanged for 450 million years , and is that a constraint or an optimal design? Evolutionary neuroscientist Barbara Finlay presents evidence that mammalian brain development follows a remarkably conserved nonlinear timetable, transformable across species with 99 percent accuracy by turning a single dial. Subscribe for more from the Convergent Science Network podcast series. Barbara Finlay joins Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott at the BCBT summer school to discuss the principles underlying brain evolution, drawing on her translatingtime.net database spanning 18 mammalian species. Her central finding is striking: the developmental schedule of the brain, from the birth of the first neurons to t ...