Evolution of the neocortex: Perspective from developmental biology

By P. Rakic. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2009

1,500 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The enlargement and species-specific elaboration of the cerebral neocortex during evolution holds the secret to the mental abilities of humans; however, the genetic origin and cellular mechanisms that generated the distinct evolutionary advancements are not well understood. This article describes how novelties that make us human may have been introduced during evolution, based on findings in the embryonic cerebral cortex in different mammalian species. The data on the differences in gene expression, new molecular pathways and novel cellular interactions that have led to these evolutionary advances may also provide insight into the pathogenesis and therapies for human-specific neuropsychiatric disorders.

Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Developmental Neuroscience, Genetics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aacefcb990d7ca2e825a2335242d64157c5c290d

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Citations in the corpus

Spatiotemporal transcriptome of the human brain (2011, background): “ppt"/> Human neurodevelopment is a complex and precisely regulated process that occurs over a protracted period of tim”
Closures and Cavities in the Human Connectome (2016, background): “One such commonality was that cycles tended to link evolutionarily old structures with more recentlydeveloped neo-cortical regions [50].”
Anatomy of hierarchy: Feedforward and feedback pathways in macaque visual cortex (2013, background): “The SLN model of cortical hierarchy emphasizes the specificity of the supragranular layers, which in mammalian evolution undergo an expansion to reach a maximum in primates (Dehay and Kennedy, 2007; Hill and Walsh, 2005; Rakic, 2009).”
Human cerebral organoids recapitulate gene expression programs of fetal neocortex development (2015, background): “Newborn neurons migrate radially from these germinal zones to finally establish in the cortical plate (CP) (8).”
A role for intermediate radial glia in the tangential expansion of the mammalian cerebral cortex. (2011, background): “…that the OSVZ may be a primate unique feature playing a central role in the development of the singularly complex primate cerebral cortex, including its tangential expansion and folding (Rakic 1995a, 2009; Kriegstein et al. 2006; Dehay and Kennedy 2007; Bystron et al. 2008 and references therein).”
Development and Evolution of the Human Neocortex (2011, neutral): “The rate of accumulation is linear at one neuron/cell cycle/RG cell (Rakic, 1988, 2009; Noctor et al., 2001).”
Brain metabolism in health, aging, and neurodegeneration (2017, neutral): “…| Revised 29 January 2017 | Accepted 4 April 2017 | Published online 24 April 2017 The EMBO Journal (2017) 36: 1474–1492 Introduction The higher cognitive functions of the human brain depend upon the expansion and increased density and complexity of the neocortex during evolution (Rakic, 2009).”
The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex (2020, background): “This is consistent with the radial unit hypothesis, which states that an increase in proliferative divisions of neural progenitor cells leads to an expansion of the pool of progenitors, resulting in increases in neuronal production and cortical SA (3, 62).”
Human cerebral cortex development from pluripotent stem cells to functional excitatory synapses (2012, background): “In addition to a marked increase in the size of the cerebral cortex relative to the rest of the nervous system, these include the size, complexity and the nature of its developing stem cell population”
A taxonomy of transcriptomic cell types across the isocortex and hippocampal formation (2020, neutral): “During development, glutamatergic neurons are born within the ventricular and subventricular zones underneath the cortical plate, which is laid out into a protomap by a gradient or compartmentalized gene expression (Clowry et al., 2018; Rakic, 2009).”
Microglia regulate the number of neural precursor cells in the developing cerebral cortex (2013, background): “The human cerebral cortex is populated by 20 –25 billion neurons (Pelvig et al., 2008) that are generated in the ventricular zone (VZ) and subventricular zone (SVZ) during prenatal development (Rakic, 2009; Lui et al., 2011).”