https://www.cas.cn/syky/202504/t20250407_5061537.shtml

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(25)00273-9

The claustrum is considered a key brain region for the generation of primate consciousness.

The CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology and Chinese and French partners have mapped the claustrum of macaques by spatial transcriptome technology  and have shown that there are significant differences in the structure, cell types and distribution of the claustrum between macaques and rodents. The study found that the macaque claustrum can be divided into four subregions according to the cortical projection preference. The macaque claustrum is connected to all cortical brain regions and subcortical nuclei outside the cerebellum and is the connection center of the brain. At the same time, there are extensive connections inside the claustrum in the anterior-posterior axis. This achievement has laid the foundation for the integration of multimodal information for the generation of primate consciousness, and provides new research ideas for exploring the evolutionary mechanism of human consciousness.