Comparative brain morphogenesis. Image credit: Yin et al. (CC BY 4.0)
The most recognizable feature of the human brain is its surface folding patterns. In humans and many other mammals, the outer layer of the brain – the cerebral cortex – develops a complex pattern of ridges and grooves. These folds allow a large cortical surface to fit inside the skull and are closely linked to brain function.
Cortical folding can begin before birth, but it continues after birth as the gray matter cortex grows faster than the softer tissue beneath it, known as white matter. When a growing surface is constrained in this way, mechanical stresses build up and cause it to buckle and form sharp creases or sulci like those in the palm of one’s hand. Although genes control how brain cells grow and move, physical forces determine how this growth is translated into shape through mechanical instabilities. Different species, such as ferrets, macaques and humans, show distinct folding patterns, raising the question of whether these differences require specific biological mechanisms or can arise from a shared physical process.
Yin et al. asked whether brain folding across different mammalian species can be explained by the same basic physical mechanism: differential growth of the cortex relative to the underlying tissue. While a related study (Choi et al.) showed that this mechanism can reproduce folding in the human brain, it was unclear whether it could also account for the diversity of folding patterns seen across species. Resolving this question helps clarify how universal physical principles interact with biological growth during brain development.
The results show that a single mechanical mechanism can explain brain folding in ferrets, rhesus macaques and humans. Yin et al. combined physical experiments using soft gel models shaped like fetal brains that swell and fold when immersed in a solvent, computer simulations of growing brain tissue, and quantitative comparisons of folding patterns using mathematical frameworks. In all species studied, faster growth of the cortical layer caused the surface to buckle and form realistic folds. Differences between species were explained by variations in initial brain shape, and cortical growth rate, rather than by different folding rules. The close match between real brains, gel models, and simulations supports differential growth as a unifying explanation for cortical folding.
The work of Yin et al. provides a simple physical framework for understanding how brain folding arises across species. This suggests that genetic control of brain shape and cortical expansion could, over time, lead to different patterns of brain folding across species, as well as disorders associated with abnormal folding. However, before these insights can inform medical or evolutionary applications, future studies will need to link specific genes and cellular processes to the growth parameters used in the models and test whether the framework can explain individual differences and disease-related folding patterns, the subject of a companion paper in the same journal.
