Connectivity Profile and Function of Uniquely Human Cortical Areas

Bryant, Katherine L.; Camilleri, Julia; Warrington, Shaun; Blazquez Freches, Guilherme; Sotiropoulos, Stamatios N.; Jbabdi, Saad; Eickhoff, Simon; Mars, Rogier B.

Abstract

Determining the brain specializations unique to humans requires directly comparable anatomical information from other primates, especially our closest relatives. Human (Homo sapiens; m/f), chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes; f), and rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta; m/f) white matter atlases were used to create connectivity blueprints, i.e., descriptions of the cortical gray matter in terms of the connectivity with homologous white matter tracts. This allowed a quantitative comparison of cortical organization across the species. We identified human-unique connectivity profiles concentrated in temporal and parietal cortices and hominid-unique organization in the prefrontal cortex. Functional decoding revealed human-unique hotspots correlated with language processing and social cognition. Overall, our results counter models that assign primacy to the prefrontal cortex for human uniqueness.

Citation

Bryant, K. L., Camilleri, J., Warrington, S., Blazquez Freches, G., Sotiropoulos, S. N., Jbabdi, S., Eickhoff, S., & Mars, R. B. (2025). Connectivity Profile and Function of Uniquely Human Cortical Areas. Journal of Neuroscience, 45(15), Article e2017242025. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2017-24.2025

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 15, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Mar 17, 2025
• Publication Date: Apr 9, 2025
• Deposit Date: Mar 18, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 18, 2025
• Journal: Journal of Neuroscience
• Electronic ISSN: 1529-2401
• Publisher: Society for Neuroscience
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 45
• Issue: 15
• Article Number: e2017242025
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2017-24.2025
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/46732760
• Publisher URL: https://www.jneurosci.org/content/45/15/e2017242025