ArticleNature communications2025
Long arcuate fascicle in wild and captive chimpanzees as a potential structural precursor of the language network.
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 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Utterance evolution: the road to generative, combinatorial communicators.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Evolution of the frontal aslant tract and implications for primate vocalization and human speech.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Manifold lateralisation and variability in the language connectome at 7T.Research square · 2026Article
- Convergent and Divergent Connectivity Patterns of the Arcuate Fasciculus in Macaques and Humans.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- The prefrontal operculum, a human-specific hub for the cognitive control of speech.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Investigating the role of the left inferior frontal gyrus in language evolution: insights from comparative neuroscience.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Review
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14 authors.
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Abstract
The arcuate fascicle (AF) is the main fibre tract in the brain for human language. It connects frontal and temporal language areas in the superior and middle temporal gyrus (MTG). The AF's connection to the MTG was considered unique to humans and has influenced theories of the evolution of language. Here, using high-resolution diffusion MRI of post-mortem brains, we demonstrate that both wild and captive chimpanzees have a direct AF connection into the MTG, albeit weaker than in humans. This finding challenges the notion of a strictly human-specific AF morphology and suggests that language-related neural specialisation in humans likely evolved through gradual evolutionary strengthening of a pre-existing connection, rather than arising de novo. It is likely that this neural architecture supporting complex communication was already present in the last common ancestor of hominins and chimpanzees 7 million years ago, enabling the evolution of language processes in the human lineage.
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