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The prefrontal operculum, a human-specific hub for the cognitive control of speech
Charles Verstraete1,2, Elsa Lazzaro3, Delphine Autran-Clavagnier3,4
1Univ Lyon, Université Lyon 1, Inserm, Stem Cell and Brain Research Institute, Bron, France. charles.verstraete@ghu-paris.fr.
None:
Current theories fail to explain why the ability to control speech is unique to humans. We recently identified one unique feature in the human frontal cortex that may hold the key to this question: the Prefrontal Operculum (PFO). Here we aim to identify 1) its anatomo-functional organization to elucidate its potential function and 2) whether it has a homolog in the macaque brain. Functional connectivity (FC) results in humans, revealed that PFO is subdivided in two regions (aPFO and pPFO), displaying strong interactions but distinct whole brain FC profiles with respectively the language and the cognitive control networks, and thus suggesting an important role of PFO in the cognitive control of speech. Connectivity fingerprint analyses in macaques revealed similarities with pPFO, but we found no macaque homolog of human aPFO. Altogether, this study points toward the emergence of aPFO as an evolutionary advantage in hominids for modern speech abilities.
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