Dinosaur brain organization

[Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>]

From: Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com

A news story and the abstract for a study of dinosaur brain organization:

Scientists create detailed map of dinosaur brain

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/13/scientists-map-dinosaur-brain-tyrannosaurus-rex

==
Abstract from Neuroscience 2013 meeting:

http://www.abstractsonline.com/Plan/ViewAbstract.aspx?sKey=6d0428c5-f2f1-4226-9be0-3555e3f709ed&cKey=095b5527-2ef1-4abc-ac9e-ccc70aa47d23&mKey=%7b8D2A5BEC-4825-4CD6-9439-B42BB151D1CF%7d

Neuroscience 2013
C.-C. CHEN, K. WADA, M. V. RIVAS, E. JARVIS, D. SOARES, D. FRIEDEBERG,
T. GLENN, E. D. JARVIS (2013)
Presentation Title: Inferred organization of a dinosaur brain
Abstract:
Because dinosaurs are extinct, no known viable brain material exists.
The closest living relatives are crocodiles, which pre-date many
dinosaurs, and birds, which post-date them. Therefore, the
similarities between the brains of crocodiles and birds would suggest
shared organization with dinosaur brains. Here, we used thirteen genes
[PPAPDC1A, SEMA6A, FOXP1, FOXP2, SLIT1, COUP-TF2, ER81, LHX9, GRIN2D,
GRIN2A, ROR-β, DLX6, LHX8] that we found define seven major cerebral
subdivisions of the avian brain, consistent with a new understanding
of avian brain organization (Jarvis et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2013),
to decipher whether some or most of these regions exists in
crocodilian brain. We found six regions in the alligator brain with a
similar, but not identical organization as the avian brain. Two of
these, the striatum and pallidum, make up the basal ganglia, which we
know to be conserved among amniotes. The others include the pallial
regions that in birds were recently redefined as the arcopallium,
nidopallium, mesopallium, hyperpallium and associated primary sensory
pallial fields. These regions in birds contain pathways for vocal
learning behavior and other complex behaviors, and like in birds show
hearing-induced gene expression when hearing alligator vocalizations.
The more highly developed subdivision in birds was the hyperpallium,
at the dorsal surface of the brain, which contains one of two visual
pathways and somatosensory processing areas. Overall, the molecular
topographic organization of the crocodilian cerebrum is about 90%
similar to that of birds, including the presence of a relatively large
pallium, an analogue of the mammalian cortex. These findings suggest
that the brains of dinosaurs must have included a cerebrum with these
six subdivisions that have the capacity to process complex, cognitive
behaviors.