Brain Size and Folding of the Human Cerebral Cortex Export

@article{citeulike:4342907, abstract = {During evolution, the mammalian cerebral cortex has expanded disproportionately to brain volume. As a consequence, most mammals with large brains have profusely convoluted cortices. The human cortex is a good example of this trend, however, given the large variability in human brain size, it is not clear how cortical folding varies from the smallest to the largest brains. We analyzed cortical folding in a large cohort of human subjects exhibiting a 1.7-fold variation in brain volume. We show that the same disproportionate increase of cortical surface relative to brain volume observed across species can be also observed across human brains: the largest brains can have up to 20\% more surface than a scaled-up small brain. We introduce next a novel local measure of cortical folding, and we show that the correlation between cortical folding and size varies along a rostro-caudal gradient, being especially significant in the prefrontal cortex. The expansion of the cerebral cortex, and in particular that of its prefrontal region, is a major evolutionary landmark in the emergence of human cognition. Our results suggest that this may be, at least in part, a natural outcome of increasing brain size. 10.1093/cercor/bhm261}, author = {Toro, Roberto and Perron, Michel and Pike, Bruce and Richer, Louis and Veillette, Suzanne and Pausova, Zdenka and Paus, Tomas}, citeulike-article-id = {4342907}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhm261}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/10/2352}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18267953}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=18267953}, day = {1}, doi = {10.1093/cercor/bhm261}, journal = {Cereb. Cortex}, keywords = {biology, brain}, month = {October}, number = {10}, pages = {2352--2357}, posted-at = {2009-10-02 01:53:26}, priority = {2}, title = {Brain Size and Folding of the Human Cerebral Cortex}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhm261}, volume = {18}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:4342907 L3 - citeulike-article-id:4342907 N2 - During evolution, the mammalian cerebral cortex has expanded disproportionately to brain volume. As a consequence, most mammals with large brains have profusely convoluted cortices. The human cortex is a good example of this trend, however, given the large variability in human brain size, it is not clear how cortical folding varies from the smallest to the largest brains. We analyzed cortical folding in a large cohort of human subjects exhibiting a 1.7-fold variation in brain volume. We show that the same disproportionate increase of cortical surface relative to brain volume observed across species can be also observed across human brains: the largest brains can have up to 20% more surface than a scaled-up small brain. We introduce next a novel local measure of cortical folding, and we show that the correlation between cortical folding and size varies along a rostro-caudal gradient, being especially significant in the prefrontal cortex. The expansion of the cerebral cortex, and in particular that of its prefrontal region, is a major evolutionary landmark in the emergence of human cognition. Our results suggest that this may be, at least in part, a natural outcome of increasing brain size. 10.1093/cercor/bhm261 IS - 10 JF - Cereb. Cortex EP - 2357 TI - Brain Size and Folding of the Human Cerebral Cortex VL - 18 SP - 2352 KW - biology KW - brain AU - Toro, Roberto AU - Perron, Michel AU - Pike, Bruce AU - Richer, Louis AU - Veillette, Suzanne AU - Pausova, Zdenka AU - Paus, Tomas PY - 2008/10/01/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhm261 ER -