H2020Индивидуална стипендия2017–2019

HumanUniqueness · Does the temporal cortex make humans special? What comparing the human and great ape brain can tell us about cognitive evolution

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2017-09-01 → 2019-08-31
Финансиране от ЕС: 165 599 €
Участници: 1
Схема: MSCA-IF-EF-ST

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Накратко на български

Сравнението между мозъците на хората, шимпанзетата и макаците разкрива кои части от слепоочния кора позволяват обработката на сложна концептуална информация. Разбирането на тези структури помага при изследването на когнитивната еволюция и развитието на семантичната деменция.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Does the temporal cortex make humans special? What comparing the human and great ape brain can tell us about cognitive evolution

What is the problem/issue being addressed? Humans are unique in their ability to process complex conceptual information. To understand how humans evolved this ability, we need to know what neuroanatomical specializations support this behavior. Evidence has pointed to several candidate areas within the temporal lobe that are important for human conceptual processing. These areas also appear to have expanded disproportionately since our divergence from Old World monkeys. This project sought to both identify the functional correlates of conceptual processing in humans and to characterize the structural organization of these territories in humans, chimpanzees, and macaques, in order to determine what structural components are evolutionarily novel and which are shared with our primate relatives. Why is it important for society? The similarities between humans and primates, especially chimpanzees, have been emphasized to the public for many years. However, we still struggle to precisely delineate the differences in cognitive abilities between ourselves and other primates. Understanding the structural basis of conceptual processing in humans has important health implications as well, as it is affected by a variant of fronto-temporal dementia known semantic dementia, also known as semantic variant primary progressive aphasia. What are the overall objectives? The overall objective was to advance our understanding of how the human brain became capable of processing conceptual information, which we hypothesized is related to anatomical specializations in the human temporal cortex. To identify the cortical areas involved, two fMRI studies were designed. To identify to what extent these areas are similar to our primate relatives, diffusion scans of the brains of humans, great apes, and monkeys were analyzed to build comparative white matter atlases and surface-based connectivity parcellations. What are the conclusions of the action? The research from this action identified (1) cortical regions in humans that are organizationally different from chimpanzees and macaques, (2) which modifications occurred prior and after our split with the great apes. (3) key white matter tracts that are driving these differences and (4) neural correlates of category versus conceptual processing in humans.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

What makes humans the dominant animal species on the planet? Much of the popular literature has emphasized similarities between humans and our closest animal relatives, especially the chimpanzee. But there can be no doubt that humans are special. A major human cognitive specialization is our ability to process conceptual information. We are able to form abstract concepts by combining sources of information and generalizing from current knowledge. These concepts can be invoked in the absence of immediate percepts and used to recognize exemplars not encountered before (e.g., recognizing a basset hound as a dog even after only encountering beagles in the past).To understand how our brain evolved the ability to process such conceptual information, we need to know what anatomical specializations occurred to allow this behavior. We still know little, but damage to the anterior temporal lobe in humans produces disruption to the production and manipulation of abstract concepts. We also know that the anterior temporal lobe has disproportionately expanded in the humans since our divergence from old world monkeys and that its connections with other parts of the brain have proliferated.Therefore, the goal of the current proposal is to investigate which anatomical specializations have developed in the human brain, compared to that of our closest animal relatives, and whether these are involved in the uniquely human ability to process conceptual information. We will use a combination of ineuroimaging techniques to investigate the organization of the human, chimpanzee, and macaque brains to identify parts of the temporal cortex that are unique to the human brain. Then, using functional neuroimaging in the human volunteers, we will test whether this unique area is indeed activated when people engage in the processing of conceptual information. Together, this presents a unique opportunity to study human uniqueness in a combined comparative and psychological project.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

STICHTING RADBOUD UNIVERSITEIT · NijmegenКоординаторНидерландия