Arcuate Fasiculus

While reading "The Terrible Twelves" (Baird), I found myself wanting to know more (or perhaps not remembering enough from Physio...) about several parts of the brain she mentions.  While re-educating myself about the arcuate fasiculus, I came across Deric Bownds fantastic "MindBlog": http://mindblog.dericbownds.net.  More specifically, a post about said fasiculus, and it's role in the evolution of language in humans.  To quote Bownds:

"Rilling et al found that the organization of cortical terminations between the temporal and frontal lobes was strongly modified in the course of human evolution, and, crucially, this modification was gradual. They also noted a prominent temporal lobe projection of the human arcuate fasciculus that is much smaller or absent in nonhuman primates. This human specialization may be relevant to the evolution of language." (Bownds)

 This specific post, which includes some confusing-but-interesting comparative diagrams of human, chimp, and macaque brains, can be found here: http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/2008/04/language-evolution-and-arcuate.html

---Ben Palacios