SUMMARY
The remarkable cognitive abilities characterizing humans are thought to emerge from our unique features of cortical circuit architecture, including increased feedforward and feedback connectivity. However, our understanding of the evolutionary origin and nature of these changes in circuit connectivity, and how they impact cortical circuit function and behavior is currently lacking. Here, we demonstrate that expression of the human-specific gene duplication SRGAP2C leads to a specific increase in feedforward and feedback cortico-cortical connectivity. Moreover, humanized SRGAP2C mice display improved cortical sensory coding, and an enhanced ability to learn a cortex-dependent sensory discrimination task. Our results identify a novel substrate for human brain evolution whereby the emergence of SRGAP2C led to increased feedforward and feedback cortico-cortical connectivity, improved cortical sensory processing and enhanced behavioral performance.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
New Figure 6 and new authors (members of Randy Bruno's lab) and Supplemental files updated.
