Kiper Daniel, Martin Kevan A C, Scherberger Hansjorg
Institute of Neuroinformatics, University and ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Neurodegener Dis. 2007;4(1):34-42. doi: 10.1159/000100357.
The primate's large brain-to-body weight ratio and high complexity are unusual in the animal kingdom. There is compelling evidence that it is an evolutionary adaptation that allows its owner to live a long life because of its competence in solving a wide range of problems. How primates use their brain to achieve such competence is of course of central interest to us. Here we review some key aspects of the neocortex that can be explored in nonhuman primates. Studies of the cortical circuits in the visual cortex reveal that the two major types of pathways, called feedforward and feedback, involve a very small fraction of the total synapses that any area contains. Nevertheless these pathways may be critical for some important forms of cortical plasticity, like perceptual learning and tasks involving perception and action.
灵长类动物大脑与身体重量的比例较大且复杂性较高，这在动物王国中并不常见。有令人信服的证据表明，这是一种进化适应，使其拥有者能够长寿，因为它有能力解决各种各样的问题。灵长类动物如何利用大脑来获得这种能力，当然是我们最感兴趣的核心问题。在这里，我们回顾了新皮层的一些关键方面，这些方面可以在非人类灵长类动物中进行探索。对视觉皮层中皮质回路的研究表明，两种主要的通路，即前馈通路和反馈通路，只涉及任何一个区域所含突触总数的极小一部分。然而，这些通路可能对某些重要的皮质可塑性形式至关重要，比如知觉学习以及涉及感知和行动的任务。
