In a new JNeurosci paper, Julie Royo, from the Institute of Cerveau, and colleagues explored the neuroanatomy that underlies social dominance in nonhuman primates.
The researchers focused on brain tracts associated with human emotion, motivation, and memory as they assessed structural brain properties and behavioral measures of social dominance in 15 squirrel monkeys. These behavioral measures were related to hierarchy, aggression, and submission. Royo and colleagues found that one of the brain tracts they focused on—the uncinate fasciculus—highly correlated with their social dominance measures. This correlation was particularly true for the uncinate fasciculus in the right hemisphere of the brain.
These findings support human studies linking this brain region to social aggression, suggesting this may be an evolutionarily conserved substrate for social dominance across species.
