New study finds common brain organization among disparate mammals

Matthias Kaschube , a lecturer in physics and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University, has published in the Nov. 4 online edition of Science Express results of research into the factors determining development of the brain's neural circuits. He is available to discuss his research with interested members of the news media, and a copy of Kaschube's study is available upon request. Kaschube describes his findings as follows: "In this work we investigated the architecture of a part of the brain involved in visual processing in a diverse set of mammals whose last common ancestor lived 65 million years ago. We found a common design across species that cannot be explained by common descent or common evolutionary pressures." "The study focuses on the layout of so-called orientation preference maps in the primary visual processing area of the cerebral cortex. These maps reflect the way neural circuits in the brain operate on inputs sent from the retinas as we encounter the features of the visual world around us. They represent all the possible orientations of edges (horizontal, vertical, oblique) that might be present in any one location in what we see.