Abstract
The macaque brain serves as a model for the human brain, but its suitability is challenged by unique human features, including connectivity reconfigurations, which emerged during primate evolution. We perform a quantitative comparative analysis of the whole brain macroscale structural connectivity of the two species. Our findings suggest that the human and macaque brain as a whole are similarly wired. A region-wise analysis reveals many interspecies similarities of connectivity patterns, but also lack thereof, primarily involving cingulate regions. We unravel a common structural backbone in both species involving a highly overlapping set of regions. This structural backbone, important for mediating information across the brain, seems to constitute a feature of the primate brain persevering evolution. Our findings illustrate novel evolutionary aspects at the macroscale connectivity level and offer a quantitative translational bridge between macaque and human research.
Highlights
Over a century of research has revealed that the brain is inhomogeneous and can be divided based on functional, macroand micro- structural criteria [1,2,3,4]
The macaque brain serves as a model for the human brain, but such extrapolations might be inaccurate due to rewiring and/or expansion during primate evolution [11,12,13] masking out unique features of the human brain [14]
The wiring of the macaque and human brain as a whole is more similar than expected by chance
Summary
Over a century of research has revealed that the brain is inhomogeneous and can be divided based on functional, macroand micro- structural criteria [1,2,3,4]. Regions with similar connectivity might be involved in similar functions, and large scale connectivity constitutes a guide to cognition [10]. The macaque brain serves as a model for the human brain, but such extrapolations might be inaccurate due to rewiring and/or expansion during primate evolution [11,12,13] masking out unique features of the human brain [14]. This has important consequences for translating macaque research to humans, which is valuable for cognitive, systems and clinical neuroscience. There is the need for examining if classical homology criteria such as similarity of connectivity patterns [15,16] are satisfied
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