Journal
CEREBRAL CORTEX
Volume 25, Issue 1, Pages 26-34Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bht201
Keywords
cerebral cortex; development; evolution; macaque monkeys; magnetic resonance imaging
Categories
Funding
- Norwegian Research Council
- European Research Council
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo
- Western Norway Regional Health Authority [911397, 911687, 911593]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Cortical surface area has tremendously expanded during human evolution, and similar patterns of cortical expansion have been observed during childhood development. An intriguing hypothesis is that the high-expanding cortical regions also show the strongest correlations with intellectual function in humans. However, we do not know how the regional distribution of correlations between intellectual function and cortical area maps onto expansion in development and evolution. Here, in a sample of 1048 participants, we show that regions in which cortical area correlates with visuospatial reasoning abilities are generally high expanding in both development and evolution. Several regions in the frontal cortex, especially the anterior cingulate, showed high expansion in both development and evolution. The area of these regions was related to intellectual functions in humans. Low-expanding areas were not related to cognitive scores. These findings suggest that cortical regions involved in higher intellectual functions have expanded the most during development and evolution. The radial unit hypothesis provides a common framework for interpretation of the findings in the context of evolution and prenatal development, while additional cellular mechanisms, such as synaptogenesis, gliogenesis, dendritic arborization, and intracortical myelination, likely impact area expansion in later childhood.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available