Whether the size of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in humans is disproportionate when compared to other species is a persistent debate in evolutionary neuroscience. This question has left the study of over/under-expansion in other structures relatively unexplored. We therefore sought to address this gap by adapting anatomical areas from the digital atlases of 18 mammalian species, to create a common interspecies classification. Our approach used data-driven analysis based on phylogenetic generalized least squares to evaluate anatomical expansion covering the whole brain. Our main finding suggests a divergence in primate evolution, orienting the stereotypical mammalian cerebral proportion toward a frontal and parietal lobe expansion in catarrhini (primate parvorder comprising old world monkeys, apes, and humans). Cerebral lobe volumes slopes plotted for catarrhini species were ranked as parietal∼frontal > temporal > occipital, contrasting with the ranking of other mammalian species (occipital > temporal > frontal∼parietal). Frontal and parietal slopes were statistically different in catarrhini when compared to other species through bootstrap analysis. Within the catarrhini's frontal lobe, the prefrontal cortex was the principal driver of frontal expansion. Across all species, expansion of the frontal lobe appeared to be systematically linked to the parietal lobe. Our findings suggest that the human frontal and parietal lobes are not disproportionately enlarged when compared to other catarrhini. Nevertheless, humans remain unique in carrying the most relatively enlarged frontal and parietal lobes in an infraorder exhibiting a disproportionate expansion of these areas.

中文翻译：

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多级图谱比较揭示了灵长类动物大脑的不同进化。


与其他物种相比，人类前额叶皮层（PFC）的大小是否不成比例，是进化神经科学中持续存在的争论。这个问题使得其他结构中过度/膨胀不足的研究相对未得到探索。因此，我们试图通过调整 18 种哺乳动物物种数字图集中的解剖区域来解决这一差距，以创建通用的种间分类。我们的方法使用基于系统发育广义最小二乘法的数据驱动分析来评估覆盖整个大脑的解剖扩张。我们的主要发现表明灵长类动物的进化存在分歧，将典型的哺乳动物大脑比例定向为卡他尼（包括旧大陆猴子、猿和人类的灵长类细目动物）的额叶和顶叶扩张。为卡他类物种绘制的脑叶体积斜率排名为顶叶～额叶>颞叶>枕叶，与其他哺乳动物物种的排名（枕叶>颞叶>额叶～顶叶）形成鲜明对比。通过引导分析，与其他物种相比，卡他尼的额叶和顶叶斜率存在统计学差异。在卡他尼的额叶内，前额皮质是额叶扩张的主要驱动力。在所有物种中，额叶的扩张似乎与顶叶有系统的联系。我们的研究结果表明，与其他卡他病相比，人类的额叶和顶叶并没有不成比例地增大。然而，人类在下序中拥有相对较大的额叶和顶叶，这表明这些区域的扩张不成比例，这方面人类仍然是独一无二的。