Cantalupo Claudio, Oliver Joanne, Smith Jarrod, Nir Talia, Taglialatela Jared P, Hopkins William D
Department of Psychology, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA.
Eur J Neurosci. 2009 Aug;30(3):431-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2009.06830.x. Epub 2009 Jul 15.
Modern neuroimaging technologies allow scientists to uncover interspecies differences and similarities in hemispheric asymmetries that may shed light on the origin of brain asymmetry and its functional correlates. We analyzed asymmetries in ratios of white to grey matter in the lateral aspect of the lobes of the brains of chimpanzees. We found marked leftward asymmetries for all lobar regions. This asymmetry was particularly pronounced in the frontal region and was found to be related to handedness for communicative manual gestures as well as for tool use. These results point to a continuity in asymmetry patterns between the human and chimpanzee brain, and support the notion that the anatomical substrates for lateralization of communicative functions and complex manipulative activities may have been present in the common hominid ancestor.
现代神经成像技术使科学家能够揭示半球不对称性方面的种间差异和相似之处,这可能有助于阐明大脑不对称性的起源及其功能关联。我们分析了黑猩猩大脑叶外侧白质与灰质比例的不对称性。我们发现所有脑叶区域都存在明显的左侧不对称。这种不对称在额叶区域尤为明显,并且发现与用于交流的手动姿势以及工具使用的偏好有关。这些结果表明人类和黑猩猩大脑在不对称模式上具有连续性,并支持这样一种观点,即交流功能和复杂操纵活动的侧化的解剖学基础可能在共同的原始人类祖先中就已存在。