Evolution of neocortical folding: A phylogenetic comparative analysis of MRI from 34 primate species

Dorsal view of the reconstructed cerebral hemispheres of 34 different primate species.

This figure is from our open access paper:

Heuer, K., Gulban, O. F., Bazin, P.-L., Osoianu, A., Valabregue, R., Santin, M., Herbin, M., & Toro, R. (2018). Evolution of neocortical folding: A phylogenetic comparative analysis of MRI from 33 primate species. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/379750. 

Abstract

We present a comparative analysis of cerebral size and neocortical folding. Magnetic resonance imaging data was collected from 66 individuals belonging to 34 different primate species. We measured several neocortical folding parameters and studied their evolution using phylogenetic comparative methods. Our results suggest that the most likely model is one where phenotypical differences vary randomly through evolution (the Brownian Motion model). We present estimations of the ancestral primate phenotypes as well as estimations of the rates of phenotypic change.