ArticleScience advances2020
Evolution of brain lateralization: A shared hominid pattern of endocranial asymmetry is much more variable in humans than in great apes.
Article in Science advances, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers.
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 84 citations in OpenAlex.
- Atlas of cortical sulcal imprints on Pan endocasts.Journal of anatomy · 2026Article
- The emergence of genetic variants linked to brain and cognitive traits in human evolution.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Socioeconomic Differences in Global Brain Asymmetry: An Integrative Approach Using Image Similarity Measures and Structural Equation Modeling.Research square · 2025Article
- The universe is asymmetric, the mouse brain too.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Exploring Brain Size Asymmetry and Its Relationship with Predation Risk Among Chinese Anurans.Biology · 2025Article
- Group-specific discriminant analysis enhances detection of sex differences in brain functional network lateralization.GigaScience · 2025Article
- Effects of Cervical Spinal Manipulation on Saccadic Eye Movements.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Variation and convergence in the morpho-functional properties of the mammalian neocortex.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2024Review
- A multiscale characterization of cortical shape asymmetries in early psychosis.Brain communications · 2024Article
- Toward an Etiology of Spaceflight Neuroplastic Syndrome: Evolutionary Science Leads to New Hypotheses and Program Priorities.NeuroSci · 2023Article
- Evolution of Human Brain Left-Right Asymmetry: Old Genes with New Functions.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Article
- Tracing the development and lifespan change of population-level structural asymmetry in the cerebral cortex.eLife · 2023Article
- From fossils to mind.Communications biology · 2023Review
- Human and chimpanzee shared and divergent neurobiological systems for general and specific cognitive brain functions.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Dissociable brain structural asymmetry patterns reveal unique phenome-wide profiles.Nature human behaviour · 2023Article
- Testing different 3D techniques using geometric morphometrics: Implications for cranial fluctuating asymmetry in humans.American journal of biological anthropology · 2023Article
- Frontal sinuses and human evolution.Science advances · 2022Article
- Article
- Heritability and cross-species comparisons of human cortical functional organization asymmetry.eLife · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Brain lateralization is commonly interpreted as crucial for human brain function and cognition. However, as comparative studies among primates are rare, it is not known which aspects of lateralization are really uniquely human. Here, we quantify both pattern and magnitude of brain shape asymmetry based on endocranial imprints of the braincase in humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. Like previous studies, we found that humans were more asymmetric than chimpanzees, however so were gorillas and orangutans, highlighting the need to broaden the comparative framework for interpretation. We found that the average spatial asymmetry pattern, previously considered to be uniquely human, was shared among humans and apes. In humans, however, it was less directed, and different local asymmetries were less correlated. We, thus, found human asymmetry to be much more variable compared with that of apes. These findings likely reflect increased functional and developmental modularization of the human brain.
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