Diffusion tensor imaging reveals evolution of primate brain architectures

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Degang Zhang, Northwestern Polytechnical University; Lei Guo, Northwestern Polytechnical University; Dajiang Zhu, University of Georgia; Kaiming Li, University of Georgia; Longchuan Li, Emory University; Hanbo Chen, University of Georgia; Qun Zhao, University of Georgia; Xiaoping Hu, Emory University; Tianming Liu, University of Georgia
• Language: English
• Date: 2013-11-01
• Publisher: Springer (part of Springer Nature): Springer Open Choice Hybrid Journals
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00429-012-0468-4
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Brain Structure and Function
• ISSN: 1863-2653
• Volume: 218
• Issue: 6
• Start Page: 1429
• End Page: 1450
• Grant/Funding Information: K Li and D Zhang were supported by the China Government Scholarship.; T Liu was supported by the NIH Career Award EB 006878, NIH R01 HL087923-03S2, NIH R01 R01DA033393, NSF CAREER Award IIS-1149260, and The University of Georgia start-up research funding.; L Li and X Hu were supported by NIH PO1 AG026423 and NIH R01 R01DA033393.
• Keywords: VOLUME; Neurosciences; Anatomy & Morphology; GYRIFICATION; HUMANS; Brain architecture; NEUROANATOMY; SURFACE; SIZE; PERSPECTIVE; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; CORTEX; Diffusion tensor imaging; Science & Technology; NEOCORTEX; Neurosciences & Neurology; Brain evolution
• Research Categories: Computer Science; Engineering, Biomedical

Abstract

Evolution of the brain has been an inherently interesting problem for centuries. Recent studies have indicated that neuroimaging is a powerful technique for studying brain evolution. In particular, a variety of reports have demonstrated that consistent white matter fiber connection patterns derived from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) tractography reveal common brain architecture and are predictive of brain functions. In this paper, based on our recently discovered 358 dense individualized and common connectivity-based cortical landmarks (DICCCOL) defined by consistent fiber connection patterns in DTI datasets of human brains, we derived 65 DICCCOLs that are common in macaque monkey, chimpanzee and human brains and 175 DICCCOLs that exhibit significant discrepancies amongst these three primate species. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations not only demonstrated the consistencies of anatomical locations and structural fiber connection patterns of these 65 common DICCCOLs across three primates, suggesting an evolutionarily preserved common brain architecture but also revealed regional patterns of evolutionarily induced complexity and variability of those 175 discrepant DICCCOLs across the three species.