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The comparative connectome

比较连接组

基本信息

批准号：
BB/N019814/1
负责人：
Rogier Mars
金额：
$ 125.12万
依托单位：
University of Oxford
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Fellowship
财政年份：
2017
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2017 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FN019814%2F1
关键词：
comparative connectome

项目摘要

What makes humans unique? Relative to our body size, we have the largest brain of any primate. This massive brain allows us to dominate the planet, while our closest animal cousins, the great apes, are relegated to small patches of Africa and Indonesia. However, exactly what changed in our brain when it got bigger and how this relates to our uniquely human behaviors, such as spoken language, advanced tool-making, and bipedal walking, remains a mystery. In this project, we try to solve this mystery, by comparing the architecture of our brain to that of a range of other primates.If we want to understand what makes our brain different, it is not enough to compare it to that of just one other ape or monkey. We differ in many respects from other primates and thus any differences we find might find can be related to many behaviors. If we want to understand how different behaviors are related to particular changes in our brain, we have to compare our brain to that of a range of other primates, each with different behaviors. Therefore, in this project we aim to map the connections and brain regions of a range of different primates.We will use new developments in neuroimaging to scan the brain of primates post-mortem. We will obtain the brains from animals that have lived in zoos and that have died through causes completely unrelated to our research. This will allow us to study more species than ever before without any ethical constraints. By using neuroimaging we can obtain different types of information from each brain, such as how big specific brain regions are, where they are located, and how they are connected. This project will be based at the University of Oxford's FMRIB centre. The Fellow and a post-doctoral research assistant will conduct the majority of the work, in collaboration with the MRI Physics Group at FMRIB.We will investigate differences in brains related to three types of behavior that we believe are particularly well developed in humans: language, tool use, and general decision-making.Human language has been suggested to be possible due to a series of new connections between the temporal and frontal cortex of the human brain. However, it has recently been suggested that some of these connections are already present in great apes, such as gorillas, which mean they might not be exclusively related to language. By comparing these connections between monkeys, apes, and humans we can test this idea, and see which connections are special to which group of animals.Human tool-making has been essential in our conquest of the world. It is thought that we integrate much more complex conceptual information into our tool use than other animals do. This can have happened in two ways, by the formation of a new pathway in the brain specifically for using tools or by elaborating on existing pathways for reaching and grasping in the parietal and premotor cortex of monkeys. We will compare the pathways connecting parietal and premotor cortex in humans and monkeys and see whether there is a new pathway in humans that might mediate tool behavior.The most distinctive part of our human brain is the prefrontal cortex, which is very large in the human brain and has been related to our decision-making abilities However, whether this size is the reason that our brain is capable of complex behavior or whether it is due to the extended connections with the rest of the brain that bring our frontal cortex more information than in the monkey is unknown. We can only study this by comparing both the size and the connections of the frontal cortex across species. This way, we can see whether in our brain the relationship between size and connections of the frontal cortex is as predicated based on other primates or whether there is something special about our case.Together, this work will help us understand not only what makes us different from other animals, but also what makes these animals different from one another.

是什么让人类与众不同？相对于我们的身体大小，我们拥有灵长类动物中最大的大脑。这个巨大的大脑使我们能够统治这个星球，而我们最近的动物亲戚，类人猿，却沦落到非洲和印度尼西亚的小块土地上。然而，当我们的大脑变大时，它究竟发生了什么变化，以及这与我们独特的人类行为（如口语、先进的工具制造和两足行走）有何关系，仍然是一个谜。在这个项目中，我们试图通过将我们的大脑结构与其他灵长类动物的大脑结构进行比较来解开这个谜团。如果我们想了解是什么让我们的大脑与众不同，仅仅将它与其他猿猴的大脑进行比较是不够的。我们在许多方面与其他灵长类动物不同，因此我们发现的任何差异都可能与许多行为有关。如果我们想了解不同的行为是如何与我们大脑中的特定变化相关联的，我们必须将我们的大脑与其他灵长类动物的大脑进行比较，每一种动物都有不同的行为。因此，在这个项目中，我们的目标是绘制一系列不同灵长类动物的连接和大脑区域。我们将使用神经成像的新发展来扫描灵长类动物死后的大脑。我们将从生活在动物园里的动物身上获取大脑，这些动物的死亡原因与我们的研究完全无关。这将使我们能够研究比以往更多的物种，而不受任何伦理约束。通过使用神经成像，我们可以从每个大脑获得不同类型的信息，比如大脑特定区域有多大，它们位于哪里，以及它们是如何连接的。该项目将以牛津大学FMRIB中心为基础。该研究员和一名博士后研究助理将与FMRIB的核磁共振物理小组合作进行大部分工作。我们将研究大脑中与三种行为相关的差异，我们认为这三种行为在人类中特别发达：语言、工具使用和一般决策。人类语言被认为是可能的，因为人类大脑的颞叶和额叶皮层之间有一系列新的联系。然而，最近有人提出，其中一些联系已经存在于大猩猩等类人猿中，这意味着它们可能不仅仅与语言有关。通过比较猴子、猿和人类之间的这些联系，我们可以检验这一观点，看看哪种联系对哪种动物来说是特殊的。人类制造工具对我们征服世界至关重要。人们认为，与其他动物相比，我们在使用工具时整合了更为复杂的概念性信息。这可能以两种方式发生，一种是在大脑中形成了一条专门用于使用工具的新通路，另一种是在猴子的顶叶和运动前皮层中，对现有的用于伸手和抓取的通路进行了细化。我们将比较人类和猴子的顶叶和运动前皮层之间的通路，看看是否有一条新的通路可以调节人类的工具行为。人类大脑中最独特的部分是前额叶皮层，它在人类大脑中非常大，与我们的决策能力有关。然而，这种大小是我们的大脑能够做出复杂行为的原因，还是由于与大脑其他部分的扩展连接使我们的前额叶皮层比猴子拥有更多的信息，这是未知的。我们只能通过比较不同物种的额叶皮质的大小和连接来研究这个问题。通过这种方式，我们可以看到，在我们的大脑中，额叶皮质的大小和连接之间的关系是基于其他灵长类动物的预测，还是我们的情况有什么特殊之处。总之，这项工作将帮助我们不仅了解是什么使我们不同于其他动物，而且也使这些动物彼此不同。

项目成果

期刊论文数量（10）

专著数量（0）

科研奖励数量（0）

会议论文数量（0）

专利数量（0）

A Pig White Matter Atlas and Common Connectivity Space Provide a Roadmap for the Introduction of a New Animal Model in Translational Neuroscience

DOI：
10.21203/rs.3.rs-105759/v1
发表时间：
2020-10
期刊：
影响因子：
0
作者：
R. A. Benn;R. Mars;Ting Xu;L. Rodríguez-Esparragoza;P. Montesinos;J. Manzano-Patrón;G. López-Martín;V. Fuster;J. Sánchez-González;E. Duff;B. Ibáñez
通讯作者：
R. A. Benn;R. Mars;Ting Xu;L. Rodríguez-Esparragoza;P. Montesinos;J. Manzano-Patrón;G. López-Martín;V. Fuster;J. Sánchez-González;E. Duff;B. Ibáñez

Primate homologs of mouse cortico-striatal circuits

小鼠皮质纹状体回路的灵长类同源物