ArticleNature communications2025
Individual variation in the chimpanzee arcuate fasciculus predicts vocal and gestural communication.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Emergence of Topography and Hemispheric Lateralization in High-Level Vision.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2026Review
- Convergent and Divergent Connectivity Patterns of the Arcuate Fasciculus in Macaques and Humans.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- The inferior frontal sulcus in the chimpanzee brain: morphological examination and association with oro-facial communication.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Unifying the gestural and the vocal in the evolution of culture, the arts, and the brain.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Oro-facial and manual motor functions are differentially associated with short-fiber white matter connectivity within the chimpanzee "homunculus".Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Insights From Language-Trained Apes: Brain Network Plasticity and Communication.Evolutionary anthropology · 2025Review
- Investigating the role of the left inferior frontal gyrus in language evolution: insights from comparative neuroscience.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Whether language has its evolutionary origins in vocal or gestural communication has long been a matter of debate. In humans, the arcuate fasciculus, a major fronto-temporal white matter tract, is left-lateralized, is larger than in nonhuman apes, and is linked to language. However, the extent to which the arcuate fasciculus of nonhuman apes is linked to vocal and/or manual communication is currently unknown. Here, using probabilistic tractography in 67 chimpanzees (45 female, 22 male), we report that the chimpanzee arcuate fasciculus is not left-lateralized at the population level, in marked contrast with humans. However, individual variation in the anatomy and leftward asymmetry of the chimpanzee arcuate fasciculus is associated with individual variation in the use of both communicative gestures and communicative sounds under volitional orofacial motor control. This indicates that the arcuate fasciculus likely supported both vocal and gestural communication in the chimpanzee/human last common ancestor, 6-7 million years ago.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.