How Human Is Human Connectional Neuroanatomy?

The structure of the human brain has been studied extensively. Despite all the knowledge accrued, direct information about connections, from origin to termination, in the human brain is extremely limited. Yet there is a widespread misperception that human connectional neuroanatomy is well-established and validated. In this article, we consider what is known directly about human structural and connectional neuroanatomy. Information on neuroanatomical connections in the human brain is derived largely from studies in non-human experimental models in which the entire connectional pathway, including origins, course, and terminations, is directly visualized. Techniques to examine structural connectivity in the human brain are progressing rapidly; nevertheless, our present understanding of such connectivity is limited largely to data derived from homological comparisons, particularly with non-human primates. We take the position that an in-depth and more precise understanding of human connectional neuroanatomy will be obtained by a systematic application of this homological approach.

• Publication year

  2020

• Venue

  Frontiers in Neuroanatomy

• Publication date

  2020-04-15

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3389/fnana.2020.00018PMID 32351367PMCID 7176274
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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