Individual variation, plasticity, and learning in human brain evolution

人类创造和使用技术的能力远远超过任何其他物种。我们先进的技术技能是如何进化的，这种进化的观点能告诉我们现代人类技术学习的基础是什么？来自乔治亚州立大学和埃默里大学的一组研究人员将采用多学科方法，整合神经科学、信息学、人类学、生物医学工程和教育心理学的专业知识，解决三个主要问题：(1)人类大脑连接的哪些方面在个体之间表现出最大的差异？(2)这些高度可变的区域是否对现实世界的技术技能培训有反应？如果有，是什么因素介导了个体对这种培训的反应差异？(3)潜在的大脑网络的哪些方面存在于人类身上，而不存在于我们最亲近的亲戚黑猩猩身上，因此可能被认为是人类独特的技术学习能力的基础？这些发现将有可能揭示人类大脑组织的任何独特特征的功能意义，这些特征可能与复杂技术技能的学习和转移有关，从而扩大对我们自己和大脑的认识，并对STEM教育产生影响。该奖项由“理解神经和认知系统综合策略”项目提供，资金来自EHR核心研究（ECR）项目，该项目支持推进STEM学习研究文献的基础研究，以及SBE多学科活动办公室（SMA）项目。研究人员假设，学习复杂技术技能的能力是通过适应前额叶-顶叶-颞叶关联网络而进化的，这些区域的高度个体差异是由于选择了增加的可塑性和长期的发展，允许更多的个人经验、社会学习和文化背景的输入。研究人员将在两次STEM学习经历（工具制作和计算机编程）之前、期间和之后检查人类的大脑形态和连通性，并将大脑的变化与人类和黑猩猩的连通性差异联系起来。生成的人类大脑图谱还将为支持和刺激对其他问题的研究（如个体行为或疾病状态变化的神经预测）提供规范基础。最后，该团队将开发一个开源的分析工具，基于体素的连接，这将通过缩小当前神经成像方法的差距来帮助该领域。

The human ability to create and use technology far surpasses that of any other species. How did our advanced technological skills evolve, and what can this evolutionary perspective tell us about the basis of modern human technological learning? A team of investigators from Georgia State University and Emory University will use a multidisciplinary approach, integrating expertise in neuroscience, informatics, anthropology, biomedical engineering, and educational psychology, to address three main questions: (1) What aspects of human brain connectivity show greatest variability across individuals? (2) Are these highly variable regions responsive to real-world technological skill training, and, if so, what are the factors mediating individual differences in response to this training? (3) Which aspects of the underlying brain networks are present in humans but not our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, and therefore implicated as a likely substrate for unique human abilities for technological learning? The findings will have the potential to reveal the functional significance of any unique features of human brain organization that may be related to the learning and transfer of complex technological skills, thereby expanding knowledge of ourselves and of the brain with implications for STEM education. The award is from the Integrated Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems program, with funding from the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports fundamental research that advances the research literature on STEM learning, and the SBE Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (SMA) program. The investigators hypothesize that the ability to learn complex technological skills evolved by means of adaptations to prefrontal-parietal-temporal association networks, and that the high individual variability of these regions is due to selection for increased plasticity and protracted development, allowing for a greater input of individual experience, social learning, and cultural context. The researchers will examine human brain morphology and connectivity before, during, and after two STEM learning experiences (tool making and computer programming) and relate the pre-post changes in the brain to differences in connectivity in humans and chimpanzees. The human brain map produced will also provide a normative foundation to support and stimulate research on other questions, such as neural predictors of individual variation in behavior or in disease states). Finally, the team will develop an open source analysis tool, voxel-based connectivity, that will help the field by closing a gap in current neuroimaging methodology.