Back-up circuits in the brain

Are there "backup circuits" in the human brain that can provide failsafe connections for the primary ones?

We found three, and they are substantially reduced in humans than monkeys. This may suggest that human brains have traded off redundancy for better efficiency. https://t.co/GVKels1yVV pic.twitter.com/VssEG9u0jS

— Frank Yeh (@FangChengYeh) September 5, 2020

Abstract from the linked article:

It has been hypothesized that the human brain has traded redundancy for efficiency, but the structural existence has not been identified to examine this claim. Here, we report three redundancy circuits of the commissural pathways in primate brains, namely the orbitofrontal, temporal, and occipital redundancy circuits of the anterior commissure and corpus callosum. Each redundancy circuit has two distinctly separated routes connecting a common pair of cortical regions. We mapped their trajectories in human and rhesus macaque brains using individual and population-averaged tractography. The dissection results confirmed the existence of these redundancy circuits connecting the orbitofrontal lobe, amygdala, and visual cortex. The volume analysis showed a significant reduction in the orbitofrontal and occipital redundancy circuits of the human brain, whereas the temporal redundancy circuit had a substantial organizational difference between the human and rhesus macaque. Our overall findings suggest that the human brain is more efficient in the commissural pathway, as shown by the significantly reduced volume of the anterior commissure which serves as the backup connections for the corpus callosum. This reduction of the redundancy circuit may explain why humans are more vulnerable to psychiatric brain disorders stemming from the corpus callosum compared to non-human primates.