Elsevier

Cortex

Volume 48, Issue 1, January 2012, Pages 46-57
Cortex

Special issue: Review
The prefrontal cortex: Comparative architectonic organization in the human and the macaque monkey brains

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2011.07.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Detailed cytoarchitectonic studies of the human cerebral cortex appeared during the first quarter of the 20th century. The incorporation of the cytoarchitectonic map by Brodmann (1909) in the Talairach proportional stereotaxic space (Talairach and Tournoux, 1988) has established the Brodmann numerical nomenclature as the basis for describing the cortical location of structural and functional findings obtained with modern neuroimaging. In experimental anatomical and physiological investigations of the macaque monkey performed during the last 50 years, the numerical architectonic nomenclature used to describe findings in the prefrontal cortex has been largely based on the map by Walker (1940). Unfortunately, the map by Walker was not based on a comparative investigation of the cytoarchitecture of the human and macaque monkey prefrontal cortex and, as a result, the nomenclature and the criteria for demarcating areas in the two primate species are not always consistent. These discrepancies are a major obstacle in the ability to compare experimental findings from nonhuman primates with results obtained in functional and structural neuroimaging of the human brain. The present article outlines these discrepancies in the classical maps and describes comparative investigations of the cytoarchitecture of the prefrontal cortex of the macaque monkey and human (Petrides and Pandya, 1994, Petrides and Pandya, 1999, Petrides and Pandya, 2002a) in order to resolve these discrepancies and enable easy translation of experimental research in the monkey to findings in the human brain obtained with modern neuroimaging.

Highlights

► We outline discrepancies in the human and macaque monkey prefrontal cortex maps. ► We then describe our comparative investigations to resolve these discrepancies. ► The findings enable translating of monkey research results to the human brain.

Section snippets

Architectonic correspondence issues in the dorsolateral frontal cortex of the macaque monkey and the human brain: the problem of areas 9, 46, and 9/46

In the macaque monkey, Walker (1940) labeled the highly granular cortex within and around the sulcus principalis as area 46. In the posterior end of the sulcus principalis, area 46 is replaced by area 8 and in the rostralmost end by area 10 (see Fig. 2B). This definition of area 46 in the macaque monkey has dominated the anatomical and physiological literature in the description of cortical connections and interpretation of the location of physiological recordings and excisions to examine

Architectonic correspondence issues in the ventrolateral frontal cortex of the macaque monkey and the human brain: the problem of areas 44, 45 and 47

Major discrepancies exist between the classical cytoarchitectonic maps of the human ventrolateral frontal cortex and those of the macaque monkey. In the map of the human brain by Brodmann (Fig. 1A), the ventral part of the precentral gyrus is occupied by areas 4 and 6. In front of premotor area 6, on the inferior frontal gyrus, three areas are identified: area 44 on the pars opercularis, area 45 on the pars triangularis, and part of area 47 on the pars orbitalis of the inferior frontal gyrus.

Conclusion

The studies reviewed above indicate that the basic organization of the frontal cortex cytoarchitecture in the human and macaque monkey brains, as well as the anatomical connectivity of the various architectonic areas that comprise it, is comparable. The macaque monkey cortex remains an excellent model to study in detail issues that arise in structural and functional investigations of the human brain. In addition, the experimental anatomical and physiological findings obtained in the macaque

Acknowledgments

The research was supported by NSERC Grant RGPIN 7466.

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