Cortical Organization in Humans and Nonhuman Primates: The Evolution of Cognitive Areas and Circuits
ORCID
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6440-7892
Date of Award
Spring 5-15-2021
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Type
Dissertation
Abstract
Similarities in organization of cerebral cortex in humans and nonhuman primates offer the promise of leveraging data from invasive animal studies to better understand the complexities of the human brain, particularly those related to higher cognitive function (e.g. attention, working memory, language). Such comparisons necessitate the identification of convincing cortical homologues (areas or regions presumed to have derived from a common ancestor), requiring an accurate interspecies mapping of cortical areas and features. To this end, I describe (i) a survey of connectivity and its measures across primate species, particularly retrograde tracing and diffusion tractography, (ii) a morphometric analysis of cognitive regions, namely prefrontal cortex , and (iii) the development of a cortical surface registration driven by multimodal data types to directly compare cortical connectivity measures across species. This novel interspecies registration reveals expansion of primarily cognitive regions from macaque to human (e.g. the default mode network) not described by previous efforts and suggests non-uniform expansion across functional networks and their constituent areas.
Language
English (en)
Chair
David C. Van Essen
Committee Members
Dennis Barbour, Daniel Moran, John Pruett, Lawrence Snyder,
Included in
Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons, Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons