The uniqueness of human vulnerability to brain aging in great ape evolution

Aging is associated with progressive gray matter loss in the brain. This spatially specific, morphological change over the life span in humans is also found in chimpanzees, and the comparison between these great ape species provides a unique evolutionary perspective on human brain aging. Here, we pr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science advances 2024-08, Vol.10 (35), p.eado2733
Main Authors: Vickery, Sam, Patil, Kaustubh R, Dahnke, Robert, Hopkins, William D, Sherwood, Chet C, Caspers, Svenja, Eickhoff, Simon B, Hoffstaedter, Felix
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Aged
Aging - physiology
Animals
Biological Evolution
Brain
Female
Gray Matter
Hominidae
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Middle Aged
Neuroscience
Pan troglodytes
SciAdv r-articles
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Summary:Aging is associated with progressive gray matter loss in the brain. This spatially specific, morphological change over the life span in humans is also found in chimpanzees, and the comparison between these great ape species provides a unique evolutionary perspective on human brain aging. Here, we present a data-driven, comparative framework to explore the relationship between gray matter atrophy with age and recent cerebral expansion in the phylogeny of chimpanzees and humans. In humans, we show a positive relationship between cerebral aging and cortical expansion, whereas no such relationship was found in chimpanzees. This human-specific association between strong aging effects and large relative cortical expansion is particularly present in higher-order cognitive regions of the ventral prefrontal cortex and supports the "last-in-first-out" hypothesis for brain maturation in recent evolutionary development of human faculties.
ISSN:2375-2548
2375-2548
DOI:10.1126/sciadv.ado2733