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Humans and great apes share a large frontal cortex

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Abstract

Some of the outstanding cognitive capabilities of humans are commonly attributed to a disproportionate enlargement of the human frontal lobe during evolution. This claim is based primarily on comparisons between the brains of humans and of other primates, to the exclusion of most great apes. We compared the relative size of the frontal cortices in living specimens of several primate species, including all extant hominoids, using magnetic resonance imaging. Human frontal cortices were not disproportionately large in comparison to those of the great apes. We suggest that the special cognitive abilities attributed to a frontal advantage may be due to differences in individual cortical areas and to a richer interconnectivity, none of which required an increase in the overall relative size of the frontal lobe during hominid evolution.

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Figure 1: Three-dimensional reconstruction of the brain of (a) a common chimpanzee and (b) a human.
Figure 2: Logarithmic plot of the volume of the frontal cortex against the total volume of the hemispheres minus the frontal cortex.
Figure 3

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Acknowledgements

We thank T. Wolfson and D. Politis for statistical consulting and J. Spradling and N. Xenitopoulos for technical and graphic support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, 92093, California

    K. Semendeferi, A. Lu & N. Schenker

  2. Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, 52242, Iowa

    H. Damasio

Authors
  1. K. Semendeferi
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  2. A. Lu
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  3. N. Schenker
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  4. H. Damasio
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Correspondence to K. Semendeferi.

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Semendeferi, K., Lu, A., Schenker, N. et al. Humans and great apes share a large frontal cortex. Nat Neurosci 5, 272–276 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn814

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