Binocularity and brain evolution in primates
Binocularity and brain evolution in primates
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.0401955101
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发表时间：
2004-07-06
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Barton, RA
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Barton, RA
灵长类动物的特点是正面定向、高度会聚的轨道，这与立体视觉有关。尽管立体视觉需要专门的神经机制，但它对大脑进化的影响尚不清楚。通过系统发育比较分析，我发现灵长类类群眼眶趋同程度的进化增加与视觉大脑结构的扩张相关，从而与大脑的整体大小相关。这种模式在整个灵长类目中都有发现，并且在两个主要灵长类亚类中也有重复。与双眼视度增加相关的视觉扩展是细细胞视觉通路所特有的，这与最近表明该通路在细粒度立体视觉中的证据一致。结果支持灵长类动物大脑大小进化与视觉专业化相关的假设。
Primates are distinguished by frontally directed, highly convergent orbits, which are associated with stereoscopic vision. Although stereoscopic vision requires specialized neural mechanisms, its implications for brain evolution are unknown. Using phylogenetic comparative analysis, I show that evolutionary increases among primate taxa in the degree of orbital convergence correlate with expansion of visual brain structures and, as a consequence, with the overall size of the brain. This pattern is found across the whole primate order and is also repeated within each of the two major primate subtaxa. The visual expansion associated with increased binocularity is specific to the parvocellular visual pathway, consistent with recent evidence implicating this pathway in fine-grained stereopsis. The results support the hypothesis that brain size evolution in primates was associated with visual specialization.