Journal Article
A brain-wide anatomical analysis suggests structural coevolution of distinct neuroanatomical modules
Kozol, R.V., Conith, A.J., Yuiska, A., Cree-Newman, A., Tolentino, B., Banesh, K., Paz, A., Lloyd, E., Kowalko, J.E., Keene, A.C., R. Albertson, C. and Duboue, E.R.
Record Number:
5781
Year:
2022
Journal:
bioRxiv preprint March 18th 2022
Notes:
This version posted March 18, 2022. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0
Abstract:
Brain anatomy is highly variable and it is widely accepted that anatomical variation impacts brain
function and ultimately behavior. The structural complexity of the brain, including differences in
volume and shape, presents an enormous barrier to define how variability underlies differences
in function. In this study, we sought to investigate the evolution of brain anatomy in relation to
brain region volume and shape across the brain of a single species with variable genetic and
anatomical morphs. We generated a high-resolution brain atlas for the blind Mexican cavefish
and coupled the atlas with automated computational tools to directly assess brain region shape
and volume variability across all populations. We measured the volume and shape of every
neuroanatomical region of the brain and assess correlations between anatomical regions in
surface, cavefish and surface to cave F2 hybrids, whose phenotypes span the range of surface to
cave. We find that dorsal regions of the brain are contracted in cavefish, while ventral regions
have expanded. Interestingly, in hybrid fish the volume and shape of dorsal regions are inversely
proportional to ventral regions. This trend is true for both volume and shape, suggesting that these
two parameters share developmental mechanisms necessary for remodeling the entire brain.
Given the high conservation of brain anatomy and function among vertebrate species, we expect
these data to studies reveal generalized principles of brain evolution and show that Astyanax
provides a system for functionally determining basic principles of brain evolution by utilizing the independent genetic diversity of different morphs, to test how genes influence early patterning
events to drive brain-wide anatomical evolution.
Times Cited:
1
Relevent Species: