Though there is info in DNA etc, you likely missed the biggest source of why we learn much faster. Search for Pim van Lommel near death research and find out how wrong the classic consciousness arises from the brain hypothesis is.
You're not likely to find much support on this forum for these ideas. For those that have interest, the book Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century is a well-written treatise on the topic.
A gentler step in that direction is to see what Michael Levin and his lab are up to. He is looking for (one aspect of) intelligence, and finding it at the cellular level and below, even in an agential version of bubble sort. He's certainly challenging the notion that consciousness is limited to brain cells. All of his findings arise through experimental observation, so it forces some reckoning in a way that sociological research doesn't.
