Primate homologs of mouse cortico-striatal circuits

With the increasing necessity of animal models in biomedical research, there is a vital need to harmonise findings across species by establishing similarities and differences in rodent and primate neuroanatomy. Using a connectivity fingerprint matching approach, we compared cortico-striatal circuits across humans, non-human primates, and mice using resting state fMRI data in all species. Our results suggest that the connectivity patterns for both the nucleus accumbens and cortico-striatal motor circuits (posterior/lateral putamen) were conserved across species, making them reliable targets for cross-species comparisons. However, a large number of human and macaque striatal voxels were not matched to any mouse cortico-striatal circuit (mouse->human: 85% unassigned; mouse->macaque 69% unassigned; macaque->human; 31% unassigned). These unassigned voxels were largely localised to the caudate nucleus and anterior putamen, overlapping with executive function and social/language regions of the striatum, and connected to prefrontal-projecting cerebellar lobules and anterior prefrontal cortex, forming circuits that seem to be unique for non-human primates and humans. Our results demonstrate the potential of connectivity fingerprint matching to bridge the gap between rodent and primate neuroanatomy.