Detailed mapping of the complex fiber structure and white matter pathways of the chimpanzee brain

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • EBC Consortium - (Author)
  • Markus Morawski - (Author)
  • Henriette Rusch - (Author)
  • Patricia Wenk - (Author)
  • Nikolaus Weiskopf - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Author)
  • Roman M. Wittig - (Author)
  • Catherine Crockford - (Author)
  • Angela D. Friederici  - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Author)
  • Alfred Anwander - (Last author)
  • Chair of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience
  • Alfred Wegener Institute - Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
  • Ecology and Emergence of Zoonotic Diseases, Helmholtz Institute for One Health, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Greifswald, Germany

Abstract

Long-standing questions about human brain evolution may only be resolved through comparisons with close living evolutionary relatives, such as chimpanzees. This applies in particular to structural white matter (WM) connectivity, which continuously expanded throughout evolution. However, due to legal restrictions on chimpanzee research, neuroscience research currently relies largely on data with limited detail or on comparisons with evolutionarily distant monkeys. Here, we present a detailed magnetic resonance imaging resource to study structural WM connectivity in the chimpanzee. This open-access resource contains (1) WM reconstructions of a postmortem chimpanzee brain, using the highest-quality diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data yet acquired from great apes; (2) an optimized and validated method for high-quality fiber orientation reconstructions; and (3) major fiber tract segmentations for cross-species morphological comparisons. This dataset enabled us to identify phylogenetically relevant details of the chimpanzee connectome, and we anticipate that it will substantially contribute to understanding human brain evolution.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1122–1130
Number of pages9
JournalNature Methods
Volume21
Issue number6
Publication statusPublished - 3 Jan 2024
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85196053081

Keywords