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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on August 24, 2009
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp166
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Maturational Trajectories of Cortical Brain Development through the Pubertal Transition: Unique Species and Sex Differences in the Monkey Revealed through Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Rebecca C. Knickmeyer1, Martin Styner1,2, Sarah J. Short4, Gabriele R. Lubach4, Chaeryon Kang3, Robert Hamer1,3, Christopher L. Coe4 and John H. Gilmore1

1 Department of Psychiatry, 2 Department of Computer Science, 3 Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA, 4 Harlow Center for Biological Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI 53715, USA

Address correspondence to Rebecca C. Knickmeyer, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, 7023E Neurosciences Hospital, Campus Box #7160, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7160, USA. Email: rebecca_knickmeyer{at}med.unc.edu.

Characterizing normal brain development in the rhesus macaque is a necessary prerequisite for establishing better nonhuman primate models of neuropathology. Structural magnetic resonance imaging scans were obtained on 37 rhesus monkeys (20 Male, 17 Female) between 10 and 64 months of age. Effects of age and sex were analyzed with a cross-sectional design. Gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) volumes were determined for total brain and major cortical regions using an automatic segmentation and parcellation pipeline. Volumes of major subcortical structures were evaluated. Unlike neural maturation in humans, GM volumes did not show a postpubertal decline in most cortical regions, with the notable exception of the prefrontal cortex. Similar to humans, WM volumes increased through puberty with less change thereafter. Caudate, putamen, amygdala, and hippocampus increased linearly as did the corpus callosum. Males and females showed similar maturational patterns, although males had significantly larger brain volumes. Females had a proportionately larger caudate, putamen, and hippocampus, whereas males had both an absolute and relatively larger corpus callosum. The authors discuss the possible implications of these findings for research using the rhesus macaque as a model for neurodevelopmental disorders.

Key Words: adolescence • cerebral cortex • Macaca mulatta • puberty • rhesus

Received for publication December 2, 2008. Revision received July 16, 2009. Accepted for publication July 17, 2009.


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