Our reporters have obtained information from the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Researchers Liu Cirong and Sun Yidi from this center, working in tandem with BGI Research and a number of other institutions, have, for the very first time, successfully unveiled the organizational blueprint of bimodal molecular gradients within the primate cerebral cortex. This breakthrough was made possible by integrating a suite of multimodal technologies, including spatial transcriptomics, magnetic resonance imaging, and neural tracing. This discovery brings clarity to long-standing academic debates concerning the origin and expansion of the cerebral cortex, laying a vital theoretical groundwork for comprehending brain evolution and organization. The pertinent research findings were published on April 16 in Science, an internationally renowned, top-tier academic journal.
