Left Brain Asymmetry of the Planum Temporale in a Nonhominid Primate: Redefining the Origin of Brain Specialization for Language

Damien Marie, Muriel Roth, Romain Lacoste, Bruno Nazarian, Alice Bertello, Jean Luc Anton, William D. Hopkins, Konstantina Margiotoudi, Scott A. Love, Adrien Meguerditchian

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

The planum temporale (PT) is a critical region of the language functional network in the human brain showing a striking size asymmetry toward the left hemisphere. Historically considered as a structural landmark of the left-brain specialization for language, a similar anatomical bias has been described in great apes but never in monkeys - indicating that this brain landmark might be unique to Hominidae evolution. In the present in vivo magnetic resonance imaging study, we show clearly for the first time in a nonhominid primate species, an Old World monkey, a left size predominance of the PT among 96 olive baboons (Papio anubis), using manual delineation of this region in each individual hemisphere. This asymmetric distribution was quasi-identical to that found originally in humans. Such a finding questions the relationship between PT asymmetry and the emergence of language, indicating that the origin of this cerebral specialization could be much older than previously thought, dating back, not to the Hominidae, but rather to the Catarrhini evolution at the common ancestor of humans, great apes and Old World monkeys, 30-40 million years ago.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1808-1815
Number of pages8
JournalCerebral Cortex
Volume28
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - May 1 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • MRI
  • baboons
  • brain evolution
  • hemispheric specialization

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

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