What Are the Synergies between Paleoanthropology and Brain Imaging?

International audienceWe are interested here in the central organ of our thoughts: the brain. Advances inneuroscience have made it possible to obtain increasing information on the anatomy of this organ,at ever-higher resolutions, with different imaging techniques, on ever-larger samples. At the sametime, paleoanthropology has to deal with partial reflections on the shape of the brain, on fragmentaryspecimens and small samples in an attempt to approach the morphology of the brain of past humanspecies. It undeniably emerges from the perspective we propose here that paleoanthropology hasmuch to gain from interacting more with the field of neuroimaging. Improving our understandingof the morphology of the endocast necessarily involves studying the external surface of the brainand the link it maintains with the internal surface of the skull. The contribution of neuroimagingwill allow us to better define the relationship between brain and endocast. Models of intra- andinter-species variability in brain morphology inferred from large neuroimaging databases will helpmake the most of the rare endocasts of extinct species. We also conclude that exchanges betweenthese two disciplines will also be beneficial to our knowledge of the Homo sapiens brain. Documentingthe anatomy among other human species and including the variation over time within our ownspecies are approaches that offer us a new perspective through which to appreciate what reallycharacterizes the brain of humanity today