Baby Brain Growth Mirrors Changes from Apes to Humans
ScienceDaily (July 13, 2010) — A study undertaken to help scientists concerned with abnormal brain development in premature babies has serendipitously revealed evolution's imprint on the human brain.
Areas of expansion in the human cortex during infancy and childhood, top, closely match areas of change in the human brain when compared to the brains of apes and monkeys. Yellow areas expanded the most, followed by orange, red, blue and light blue areas. (Credit: Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.)
Researchers report the finding in a detailed comparison of the brains of normal-term infants and healthy young adults published online in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists conducted the study to help assess the long-term effects of premature birth on brain development. These can include increased risks of learning disabilities, attention deficits, behavioral problems and cognitive impairments.
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Similar patterns of cortical expansion during human development and evolution
Jason Hill a,1, Terrie Inder a, Jeffrey Neil a, Donna Dierker b, John Harwell b, and David Van Essen b
-Author Affiliations
Departments of
aPediatrics and
bAnatomy and Neurobiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63108
Edited by Pasko Rakic, Yale University, New Haven, CT, and approved June 1, 2010 (received for review February 14, 2010)
Abstract
The cerebral cortex of the human infant at term is complexly folded in a similar fashion to adult cortex but has only one third the total surface area. By comparing 12 healthy infants born at term with 12 healthy young adults, we demonstrate that postnatal cortical expansion is strikingly nonuniform: regions of lateral temporal, parietal, and frontal cortex expand nearly twice as much as other regions in the insular and medial occipital cortex. This differential postnatal expansion may reflect regional differences in the maturity of dendritic and synaptic architecture at birth and/or in the complexity of dendritic and synaptic architecture in adults. This expression may also be associated with differential sensitivity of cortical circuits to childhood experience and insults. By comparing human and macaque monkey cerebral cortex, we infer that the pattern of human evolutionary expansion is remarkably similar to the pattern of human postnatal expansion. To account for this correspondence, we hypothesize that it is beneficial for regions of recent evolutionary expansion to remain less mature at birth, perhaps to increase the influence of postnatal experience on the development of these regions or to focus prenatal resources on regions most important for early survival.
bAnatomy and Neurobiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63108
Edited by Pasko Rakic, Yale University, New Haven, CT, and approved June 1, 2010 (received for review February 14, 2010)
Abstract
The cerebral cortex of the human infant at term is complexly folded in a similar fashion to adult cortex but has only one third the total surface area. By comparing 12 healthy infants born at term with 12 healthy young adults, we demonstrate that postnatal cortical expansion is strikingly nonuniform: regions of lateral temporal, parietal, and frontal cortex expand nearly twice as much as other regions in the insular and medial occipital cortex. This differential postnatal expansion may reflect regional differences in the maturity of dendritic and synaptic architecture at birth and/or in the complexity of dendritic and synaptic architecture in adults. This expression may also be associated with differential sensitivity of cortical circuits to childhood experience and insults. By comparing human and macaque monkey cerebral cortex, we infer that the pattern of human evolutionary expansion is remarkably similar to the pattern of human postnatal expansion. To account for this correspondence, we hypothesize that it is beneficial for regions of recent evolutionary expansion to remain less mature at birth, perhaps to increase the influence of postnatal experience on the development of these regions or to focus prenatal resources on regions most important for early survival.
folding postnatal cortex macaque primate
Footnotes
1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: hillj@wustl.edu.
Author contributions: J. Hill, T.I., J.N., and D.V.E. designed research; J. Hill, D.D., and D.V.E. performed research; D.D., J. Harwell, and D.V.E. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; J. Hill, T.I., J.N., D.D., J. Harwell, and D.V.E. analyzed data; and J. Hill wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Data deposition: All data sets illustrated in this study are accessible in the SumsDB database (http://sumsdb.wustl.edu/sums/directory.do?id=7601585) and can be viewed online (using WebCaret) or offline (using Caret software) as figure-specific “scenes” that recapitulate what is displayed in the individual figure panels.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1001229107/-/DCSupplemental.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
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