Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-guided Therapy, Computational Imaging Research Lab, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Center for Biomedical Imaging and Neuromodulation, Nathan Kline Institute, Orangeburg, NY, USA.
Nat Commun. 2023 Apr 20;14(1):2252. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-37574-x.
Studies in comparative neuroanatomy and of the fossil record demonstrate the influence of socio-ecological niches on the morphology of the cerebral cortex, but have led to oftentimes conflicting theories about its evolution. Here, we study the relationship between the shape of the cerebral cortex and the topography of its function. We establish a joint geometric representation of the cerebral cortices of ninety species of extant Euarchontoglires, including commonly used experimental model organisms. We show that variability in surface geometry relates to species' ecology and behaviour, independent of overall brain size. Notably, ancestral shape reconstruction of the cortical surface and its change during evolution enables us to trace the evolutionary history of localised cortical expansions, modal segregation of brain function, and their association to behaviour and cognition. We find that individual cortical regions follow different sequences of area increase during evolutionary adaptations to dynamic socio-ecological niches. Anatomical correlates of this sequence of events are still observable in extant species, and relate to their current behaviour and ecology. We decompose the deep evolutionary history of the shape of the human cortical surface into spatially and temporally conscribed components with highly interpretable functional associations, highlighting the importance of considering the evolutionary history of cortical regions when studying their anatomy and function.
比较神经解剖学和化石记录的研究表明，社会生态位对大脑皮层形态有影响，但这往往导致了关于其进化的冲突理论。在这里，我们研究了大脑皮层的形状与其功能的地形之间的关系。我们建立了现存的 90 种真兽类动物的大脑皮层的联合几何表示，包括常用的实验模型生物。我们表明，表面几何形状的可变性与物种的生态和行为有关，而与大脑的整体大小无关。值得注意的是，皮质表面的祖先形状重建及其在进化过程中的变化，使我们能够追踪局部皮质扩张、脑功能的模态分离及其与行为和认知的进化历史。我们发现，在适应动态社会生态位的过程中，个体皮质区域遵循不同的区域面积增加序列。在现存物种中仍然可以观察到这些事件序列的解剖学相关性，并且与它们当前的行为和生态有关。我们将人类大脑皮层表面形状的深度进化历史分解为具有高度可解释功能关联的空间和时间限定的成分，突出了在研究大脑皮层的解剖结构和功能时考虑其进化历史的重要性。
