Department of Medicine and Surgery, Neuroscience Unit, University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
Cortex. 2019 Sep;118:19-37. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.09.024. Epub 2018 Oct 11.
The extent to which neural circuits and mechanisms underlying sensory, motor, and cognitive cortical functions in the human brain are shared with those of other animals, especially non-human primates, is currently a key issue in the field of comparative neuroscience. Cortical functions result from the conjoint function of different, reciprocally connected areas working together as large-scale functionally specialized networks, which can be investigated in human subjects thanks to the development of non-invasive functional and connectional imaging techniques. In spite of their limitations in terms of spatial and temporal resolution, these techniques make it possible to address the issue of how and to what extent the neural mechanisms for different cortical functions differ from those of non-human primates. Indeed, 30 million years of independent evolution have resulted in significant differences between the brains of humans and macaques, which are the experimental model system phylogenetically closest to humans for obtaining highly detailed anatomical and functional information on the organization of cortical networks. In the macaque brain, architectonic, connectional, and functional data have provided evidence for functionally specialized large-scale cortical networks involving temporal, parietal, and frontal areas. These networks appear to play a primary role in controlling different aspects of motor and cognitive motor functions, such as hand action organization and recognition, or oculomotor behavior and gaze processing. In the present review, based on the comparison of these data with data from human studies, we will argue that there is clear evidence for human counterparts of these networks. These human and macaque putatively homolog networks appear to share phylogenetically older neural mechanisms, which, in the evolution of the human lineage, could have been exploited and differentiated, resulting in the emergence of human-specific higher-order cognitive functions. These considerations are fully in line with the notion of "neural reuse" in primate evolution.
人类大脑中感觉、运动和认知皮层功能的神经回路和机制在何种程度上与其他动物（尤其是非人类灵长类动物）共享，是比较神经科学领域的一个关键问题。皮层功能是由不同的、相互连接的区域共同作用的结果，这些区域作为大规模功能专门化的网络一起工作，可以通过开发非侵入性的功能和连接成像技术在人类受试者中进行研究。尽管这些技术在空间和时间分辨率方面存在局限性，但它们使得人们有可能解决不同皮层功能的神经机制在何种程度上以及在何种程度上与非人类灵长类动物的神经机制不同的问题。事实上，3000 万年的独立进化导致了人类和猕猴大脑之间存在显著差异，猕猴是实验模型系统，在获取关于皮层网络组织的高度详细的解剖和功能信息方面与人类最为接近。在猕猴大脑中，结构、连接和功能数据为涉及颞叶、顶叶和额叶的功能专门化的大规模皮层网络提供了证据。这些网络似乎在控制运动和认知运动功能的不同方面发挥着主要作用，例如手部动作的组织和识别，或眼球运动行为和注视处理。在本综述中，我们将根据这些数据与人类研究数据的比较，认为有明确的证据表明这些网络存在于人类中。这些人类和猕猴的假定同源网络似乎共享了具有进化历史的较老的神经机制，在人类谱系的进化过程中，这些机制可能被利用和分化，从而产生了人类特有的更高阶认知功能。这些考虑与灵长类动物进化中的“神经再利用”概念完全一致。
