An ancestral anatomical and spatial bias for visually guided behavior

Friedrich, P., Thiebaut de Schotten, M., Forkel, S. J., Stacho, M., & Howells, H. (2020). An ancestral anatomical and spatial bias for visually guided behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117(5), 2251-2252. doi:10.1073/pnas.1918402117.
Human behavioral asymmetries are commonly studied in the context of structural cortical and connectional asymmetries. Within this framework, Sreenivasan and Sridharan (1) provide intriguing evidence of a relationship between visual asymmetries and the lateralization of superior colliculi connections—a phylogenetically older mesencephalic structure. Specifically, response facilitation for cued locations (i.e., choice bias) in the contralateral hemifield was associated with differences in the connectivity of the superior colliculus. Given that the superior colliculus has a structural homolog—the optic tectum—which can be traced across all Vertebrata, these results may have meaningful evolutionary ramifications.
Publication type
Journal article
Publication date
2020

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