Publication

Continuity, Divergence, and the Evolution of Brain Language Pathways

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  • 02/20/2025
Type of Material
Authors
    James K Rilling, Emory UniversityMatthew F. Glasser, Washington UniversitySaad Jbabdi, University of OxfordJesper Andersson, University of OxfordTodd M Preuss, Emory University
Language
  • English
Date
  • 2012-01-03
Publisher
  • Frontiers Research Foundation
Publication Version
Copyright Statement
  • © 2012 Rilling, Glasser, Jbabdi, Andersson and Preuss.
License
Final Published Version (URL)
Title of Journal or Parent Work
Volume
  • 3
Grant/Funding Information
  • The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
  • Funding was provided by NIMH Grant R01 MH084068-01A1, NIA Grant 5P01 AG026423-03, and the Yerkes Base Grant: NIH RR-00165.
  • Some computations were performed using facilities of the Washington University Center for High Performance Computing, partially supported by Grant NCRR 1S10RR022984-01.
  • Matthew F. Glasser was supported by a National Research Science Award – Medical Scientist NIH T32 GM007200.
Abstract
  • Recently, the assumption of evolutionary continuity between humans and non-human primates has been used to bolster the hypothesis that human language is mediated especially by the ventral extreme capsule pathway that mediates auditory object recognition in macaques. Here, we argue for the importance of evolutionary divergence in understanding brain language evolution. We present new comparative data reinforcing our previous conclusion that the dorsal arcuate fasciculus pathway was more significantly modified than the ventral extreme capsule pathway in human evolution. Twenty-six adult human and twenty-six adult chimpanzees were imaged with diffusion-weighted MRI and probabilistic tractography was used to track and compare the dorsal and ventral language pathways. Based on these and other data, we argue that the arcuate fasciculus is likely to be the pathway most essential for higher-order aspects of human language such as syntax and lexical–semantics.
Author Notes
  • *Correspondence: James K. Rilling, Department of Anthropology, Emory University, 1557 Dickey Drive, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. e-mail: jrillin@emory.edu
Keywords
Research Categories
  • Biology, Neuroscience
  • Biology, General

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