1. Neuroscience

Whole brain comparative anatomy using connectivity blueprints

  1. Rogier B Mars  Is a corresponding author
  2. Stamatios N Sotiropoulos
  3. Richard E Passingham
  4. Jerome Sallet
  5. Lennart M Verhagen
  6. Alexandre A Khrapitchev
  7. Nicola Sibson
  8. Saad Jbabdi
  1. University of Oxford, United Kingdom
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.35237
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  1. Rogier B Mars
  2. Stamatios N Sotiropoulos
  3. Richard E Passingham
  4. Jerome Sallet
  5. Lennart M Verhagen
  6. Alexandre A Khrapitchev
  7. Nicola Sibson
  8. Saad Jbabdi
(2018)
Whole brain comparative anatomy using connectivity blueprints
eLife 7:e35237.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.35237
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Abstract

Comparing the brains of related species faces the challenges of establishing homologies whilst accommodating evolutionary specializations. Here we propose a general framework for understanding similarities and differences between the brains of primates. The approach uses white matter blueprints of the whole cortex based on a set of white matter tracts that can be anatomically matched across species. The blueprints provide a common reference space that allows us to navigate between brains of different species, identify homologous cortical areas, or to transform whole cortical maps from one species to the other. Specializations are cast within this framework as deviations between the species' blueprints. We illustrate how this approach can be used to compare human and macaque brains.

Data availability

The human diffusion MRI data was obtained from the Human Connectome Project (www.humanconnectome.org.). Tractography protocols for building the blueprints, code, and results are available for download from Gitlab at https://git.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/rmars/comparing-connectivity-blueprints.git.

The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Rogier B Mars

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    For correspondence
    rogier.mars@psy.ox.ac.uk
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6302-8631

  2. Stamatios N Sotiropoulos

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4735-5776

  3. Richard E Passingham

    Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Jerome Sallet

    Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7878-0209

  5. Lennart M Verhagen

    Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  6. Alexandre A Khrapitchev

    Department of Oncology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7616-6635

  7. Nicola Sibson

    Department of Oncology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  8. Saad Jbabdi

    Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/N019814/1)

  • Rogier B Mars

Medical Research Council (MR/L009013/1)

  • Saad Jbabdi

Wellcome (203139/Z/16/Z)

  • Rogier B Mars
  • Jerome Sallet
  • Saad Jbabdi

Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (452-­13-­015)

  • Rogier B Mars

Cancer Research UK (C5255/A15935)

  • Alexandre A Khrapitchev
  • Nicola Sibson

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2018, Mars et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Rogier B Mars
  2. Stamatios N Sotiropoulos
  3. Richard E Passingham
  4. Jerome Sallet
  5. Lennart M Verhagen
  6. Alexandre A Khrapitchev
  7. Nicola Sibson
  8. Saad Jbabdi
(2018)
Whole brain comparative anatomy using connectivity blueprints
eLife 7:e35237.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.35237

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.35237

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Further reading

    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Neuroscience

    Whole-brain comparison of rodent and human brains using spatial transcriptomics

    Antoine Beauchamp, Yohan Yee ... Jason P Lerch
    Research Advance Updated

    The ever-increasing use of mouse models in preclinical neuroscience research calls for an improvement in the methods used to translate findings between mouse and human brains. Previously, we showed that the brains of primates can be compared in a direct quantitative manner using a common reference space built from white matter tractography data (Mars et al., 2018b). Here, we extend the common space approach to evaluate the similarity of mouse and human brain regions using openly accessible brain-wide transcriptomic data sets. We show that mouse-human homologous genes capture broad patterns of neuroanatomical organization, but the resolution of cross-species correspondences can be improved using a novel supervised machine learning approach. Using this method, we demonstrate that sensorimotor subdivisions of the neocortex exhibit greater similarity between species, compared with supramodal subdivisions, and mouse isocortical regions separate into sensorimotor and supramodal clusters based on their similarity to human cortical regions. We also find that mouse and human striatal regions are strongly conserved, with the mouse caudoputamen exhibiting an equal degree of similarity to both the human caudate and putamen.