Cerebral Cortex, May 2021;31: 2425–2449 doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa365 Advance Access Publication Date: 26 December 2020 Feature Article FEATURE ARTICLE A Connectomic Hypothesis for the Hominization of Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/31/5/2425/6047724 by guest on 24 September 2021 the Brain Jean-Pierre Changeux 1,2, Alexandros Goulas 3 and Claus C. Hilgetag 3,4 1CNRS UMR 3571, Institut Pasteur, 75724 Paris, France, 2Communications Cellulaires, Collège de France, 75005 Paris, France, 3Institute of Computational Neuroscience, University Medical Center Eppendorf, Hamburg University, 20246 Hamburg, Germany and 4Department of Health Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA 02115, USA Address correspondence to Jean-Pierre Changeux CNRS UMR 3571, Institut Pasteur, 75724 Paris, France. Email:
[email protected]. Abstract Cognitive abilities of the human brain, including language, have expanded dramatically in the course of our recent evolution from nonhuman primates, despite only minor apparent changes at the gene level. The hypothesis we propose for this paradox relies upon fundamental features of human brain connectivity, which contribute to a characteristic anatomical, functional, and computational neural phenotype, offering a parsimonious framework for connectomic changes taking place upon the human-specific evolution of the genome. Many human connectomic features might be accounted for by substantially increased brain size within the global neural architecture of the primate brain, resulting in a larger number of neurons and areas and the sparsification, increased modularity, and laminar differentiation of cortical connections. The combination of these features with the developmental expansion of upper cortical layers, prolonged postnatal brain development, and multiplied nongenetic interactions with the physical, social, and cultural environment gives rise to categorically human-specific cognitive abilities including the recursivity of language.