William Hopkins

Research project

Evolution of cortical organization for communication: A comparative approach between humans, chimpanzees and baboons

Project summary

Within the theoretical framework on the origins of human language and the brain, the proposed collaborative project aims at investigating the communicative system and its cerebral specialization using magnetic resonance images in nonhuman primates. The main objective is to develop, through an international collaboration with two laboratories affiliated to the BLRI (mainly the INT with Pascal Belin and the LPC with Adrien Meguerditchian) a t comparative study between baboons, chimpanzees and humans in order to better understand the evolutionary prerequisites of the human cortical organization for language in our common ancestors. Using the MRI anatomical brain images already collected in the 3 species, one of the objectives of the project is to investigate macrostructural asymmetries of regions of interest (related to language and voice processing in humans) and trying to homogenize the quantification procedure and anatomical landmarks across species. A specific focus will be made to the temporal lobe including the planum temporale (PT) and other auditory regions following the superior temporal sulcus (STS). A second objective of the project will be to explore noninvasive fMRI techniques for investigating the functional cortical asymmetries and neurocorrelates of vocalizations perception in anaesthetized baboons. Such approach will enable evaluating the potential overlapping between structural and functional asymmetries within the temporal lobe for voice perception.