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标题：Distinctive compartmental organization of human primary visual cortex
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作者：Todd M. Preuss ; Huixin Qi ; Jon H. Kaas 等
期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：1999
卷号：96
期号：20
页码：11601-11606
DOI：10.1073/pnas.96.20.11601
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：In the primary visual area of macaques and other monkeys, layer 4A is a mosaic of separate tissue compartments related to the parvocellular (P) and magnocellular (M) layers of the lateral geniculate nucleus. This mosaic resembles a honeycomb, with thin walls that receive direct P inputs and cores consisting of columns of dendrites and cell bodies ascending from layer 4B, a layer that receives indirect M inputs. To determine whether apes and humans have a macaque-like layer 4A, we examined the primary visual area in humans, chimpanzees, an orangutan, Old World monkeys, and New World monkeys. Apes and humans lacked the dense band of cytochrome oxidase staining in layer 4A that marks the stratum of P-geniculate afferents in monkeys. Furthermore, humans displayed a unique arrangement of presumed M-related cells and dendrites in layer 4A, as revealed with antibodies against nonphosphorylated neurofilaments and microtubule-associated protein 2. Human 4A contained a large amount of M-like tissue distributed in a complex, mesh-like pattern rather than in simple vertical arrays as in other anthropoid primates. Our results suggest that (i) the direct P-geniculate projection to layer 4A was reduced early in the evolution of the ape-human group, (ii) the M component of layer 4A was subsequently modified (and possibly enhanced) in the human lineage, and (iii) the honeycomb model does not adequately characterize human layer 4A. This is the first demonstration of a difference in the cortical architecture of humans and apes, the animals most closely related to humans.