Katherine Bryant

Bio:

Katherine L. Bryant, Ph.D. is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging at the University of Oxford. She received her doctoral degree in neuroscience from Emory University in Atlanta, USA in 2015. She is an evolutionary neuroanatomist who studies the structural specialisations of human and ape brains using diffusion tractography. Other research involves using fMRI to examine the role of temporal cortex in semantic processing and developing analytic approaches to neuroscience research that are informed by gender studies scholarship. Outside of research, she is involved in advocating for the improvement of employment conditions in the academy and social justice organizing that promotes scientific research that serves the needs of people.

Neurophylogenetics: Evolutionary Approaches to Human Brain Mapping

Abstract: Humans possess unique and uniquely complex cognitive skills, including language, tool manufacture and use, and large-scale cooperation. In order to understand the processes that permitted the evolution of these abilities in humans, we must examine the structure of the human brain in context with our closest relatives, primates, as well as members of other mammalian taxa with complex cognitive abilities (e.g., Carnivora, Cetacea, Proboscidea, etc.). Additionally, this information must go beyond absolute and relative size to also examine the organization of cortical areas, white matter connectivity, and the expansion and differentiation of brain areas. Combining data from neuroimaging, morphometry, and paleoneurology with evolutionary phylogenetic approaches will elucidate the relationship between structure, function, and evolution. In this talk, I will discuss my research on the organization of white matter in the brains of humans, chimpanzees, and macaques with a special focus on association cortex, and propose future directions for studying human brains using phylogenetic approaches.