德国马克斯·普朗克人类认知与脑科学研究所Cornelius Eichner等研究人员，绘制出黑猩猩大脑复杂纤维结构和白质通路的详细图谱。该研究于2024年6月3日在线发表于国际一流学术期刊《自然—方法学》。

据介绍，只有通过与黑猩猩等演化近亲进行比较，才能解决人类大脑演化的长期问题。这一点尤其适用于在整个演化过程中不断扩展的WM结构连接。然而，由于对黑猩猩研究的法律限制，神经科学研究目前主要依赖于细节有限的数据或与演化上遥远的猴子进行比较。

附：英文原文

Title: Detailed mapping of the complex fiber structure and white matter pathways of the chimpanzee brain

Author: Eichner, Cornelius, Paquette, Michael, Mller-Axt, Christa, Bock, Christian, Budinger, Eike, Grle, Tobias, Jger, Carsten, Kirilina, Evgeniya, Lipp, Ilona, Morawski, Markus, Rusch, Henriette, Wenk, Patricia, Weiskopf, Nikolaus, Wittig, Roman M., Crockford, Catherine, Friederici, Angela D., Anwander, Alfred

Issue&Volume: 2024-06-03

Abstract: Long-standing questions about human brain evolution may only be resolved through comparisons with close living evolutionary relatives, such as chimpanzees. This applies in particular to structural white matter (WM) connectivity, which continuously expanded throughout evolution. However, due to legal restrictions on chimpanzee research, neuroscience research currently relies largely on data with limited detail or on comparisons with evolutionarily distant monkeys. Here, we present a detailed magnetic resonance imaging resource to study structural WM connectivity in the chimpanzee. This open-access resource contains (1) WM reconstructions of a postmortem chimpanzee brain, using the highest-quality diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data yet acquired from great apes; (2) an optimized and validated method for high-quality fiber orientation reconstructions; and (3) major fiber tract segmentations for cross-species morphological comparisons. This dataset enabled us to identify phylogenetically relevant details of the chimpanzee connectome, and we anticipate that it will substantially contribute to understanding human brain evolution.

DOI: 10.1038/s41592-024-02270-1

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-024-02270-1