近日，美國科羅拉多大學(xué)的研究人員研究發(fā)現(xiàn),，猴子和人類相同功能的大腦區(qū)域在顱骨里的位置并不總是一樣,。研究結(jié)果發(fā)表在2月5日出版的Nature Methods雜志上。
先前的研究對照各物種的大腦,，并假定人類大腦就是猴子大腦的放大版,，而且所有的功能是由大腦結(jié)構(gòu)類似的區(qū)域執(zhí)行的。
為了檢驗這個觀點,，波士頓哈佛醫(yī)學(xué)院的Wim Vanduffel 和比利時的天主教魯汶大學(xué)的同事實驗納入了24位人和4只獼猴,，并觀察當(dāng)實驗對象觀看不同類型的人（好、壞,、丑等類型）大腦的反應(yīng),。他們對比了個體間受到同樣的感官刺激后大腦的反應(yīng)，并且證實了個體的大腦區(qū)域有相似的功能,。
人類和猴子的大腦腦電圖大部分對應(yīng),，但是大腦一些有類似功能的區(qū)域卻在完全不同的地方。
研究團隊表示,，這項發(fā)現(xiàn)非常重要,，這要求研究人員建立更準(zhǔn)確地人類進化模式生物。“不能因為A和B在猴子的大腦里隔得近,，就推斷出在人類的大腦里也是這樣。”Vanduffel說,。（生物谷Bioon.com）
doi:10.1038/nmeth.1869
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Establishing homology between monkey and human brains
Tor D Wager & Tal Yarkoni
Recent decades have seen a massive scientific effort to identify the functional organization of the brain in both humans and non–human species. Work in humans and other species provides complementary insights: animal models provide unique opportunities for invasive study of biological mechanisms, but differences in brain organization across species are a major obstacle to the identification of functional homologies. As a result, human and animal work is all too often discussed in parallel, separate literature. In this issue of Nature Methods, Mantini and colleagues introduce a method for identifying cross-species homologies to the neuroscientist's arsenal1.
Their technique, interspecies activity correlation (ISAC), uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify brain regions in which humans and monkeys exposed to the same dynamic stimulus—a 30-minute clip from the movie The Good, the Bad and the Ugly—show correlated patterns of activity1 (Fig. 1). The premise is that homologous regions should have similar patterns of activity across species. For example, a brain region sensitive to a particular configuration of features, including visual motion, hands, faces, object and others, should show a similar time course of activity in both species—even if its anatomical location differs across species and even if the precise features that drive the area's neurons have not yet been specified.
