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<\/a>Picture of me on the phone. Picture credits: Genevieve Wilson<\/p><\/div>\n
Lai et al. (2001) found that the Foxp2 gene plays a large role in our ability to speak by studying the DNA of people who had a language disorder. According to Schreiweis et al. (2019), the gene is found in throughout many species of animals, however, humans have a slightly different version of it. In order to study the effects of the difference, they altered the gene in mice to resemble the human version and compared them to mice with the normal mouse gene. They found that the human version of the gene caused more neurons to express Foxp2 than the normal mouse version did in areas where there was a lot of expression. However, they also found that in areas of the brain without a lot of Foxp2 expression, the human version caused even less expression than the normal mouse gene did.<\/p>\n
Castellucci et al. (2016) also studied the effects of Foxp2 in mice, however, they studied the effects of getting rid of the gene instead. Because mice who don\u2019t have the gene at all end up dying as juveniles, they studied mice with only one copy of the gene and its impacts on mating calls. They found that the mice with only one copy of Foxp2 didn\u2019t produce sounds longer than 75 ms while the mice with both copies did. They also found that the mice with only one copy of the gene produced more consistent sounds than the mice with both copies.<\/p>\n
All of this was super interesting, but mice are a little different from people. So, what is it that Foxp2 does in people? For obvious reasons, there haven\u2019t been experiments with Foxp2 in humans but there have been more studies done on the family that Lai et al (2001) studied. For example, Schulze et al. (2018) used this family to study Foxp2\u2019s effects on working memory, or the memory of what just happened. They first gave both the family members with the mutation and controls with the normal gene an IQ test. They then did various memory tests such as giving them a sentence, asking them to say if it was true or false, then asking them to repeat the last word. They found that the people with the altered Foxp2 gene did worse on the tasks than the control participants did. This could indicate that language is important in our working memory or that the Foxp2 gene also plays a role in working memory. Emmorey et al. (2017) also looked at the association between working memory and language, but without looking at the Foxp2 gene. They studied 3 groups of people: monolingual English speakers, deaf American Sign Language speakers, and people who spoke both languages. They had the participants perform various tasks such as being shown a simple picture, for example a letter, and having to remember which direction it was facing. They found that the way that you speak does have an impact on how you remember things, but most of their results seemed to apply to how you remember language.<\/p>\n
The idea that language could impact memory was fascinating, but human experiments can\u2019t prove a cause. Schreiweis et al. (2014) did an experiment in mice where they compared mice with the human version of Foxp2 with the wildtype mice. They trained the two groups of mice to a maze and found the human version of the gene did impact the mice\u2019s learning. However, they said that the reason for the change still wasn\u2019t known. Language obviously plays a large role in human cultures; however, it seems like there is still a lot that is unclear about how we are able to talk. It\u2019s crazy how much one gene can impact our ability to communicate with one another. However, I think for now I would settle for learning some other languages instead of understanding language itself.<\/p>\n
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Works Cited<\/p>\n
Castellucci, G. A., Mcginley, M. J., & Mccormick, D. A. (2016). Knockout of Foxp2 disrupts vocal development in mice. Scientific Reports, 6(1), 1-12. doi:10.1038\/srep23305<\/p>\n
Emmorey, K., Giezen, M. R., Petrich, J., Spurgeon, E., & O’Grady Farnady, L. (2017). The relation between working memory and language comprehension in signers and speakers. Acta psychologica, 177, 69\u201377. doi:10.1016\/j.actpsy.2017.04.014<\/p>\n
Lai, C. S., Fisher, S. E., Hurst, J. A., Vargha-Khadem, F., & Monaco, A. P. (2001). A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder. Nature, 413, 519-523. doi:https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/35097076<\/p>\n
Schreiweis, C., Bornschein, U., Burgui\u00e8re, E., Kerimoglu, C., Schreiter, S., Dannemann, M., \u2026 Graybiel, A. M. (2014). Humanized Foxp2 accelerates learning by enhancing transitions from declarative to procedural performance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(39), 14253\u201314258. doi:10.1073\/pnas.1414542111<\/p>\n
Schreiweis, C., Irinopoulou, T., Vieth, B., Laddada, L., Oury, F., Burguiere, E., . . . Groszer, M. (2019). Mice carrying a humanized Foxp2 knock-in allele show region-specific shifts of striatal Foxp2 expression levels. Cortex. doi:10.1101\/514893<\/p>\n
Schulze, K., Vargha-Khadem, F., & Mishkin, M. (2018). Phonological working memory and FOXP2. Neuropsychologia, 108, 147\u2013152. doi:10.1016\/j.neuropsychologia.2017.11.027<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photos:<\/p>\n
Me on the phone. [Personal photograph taken in Paris apartment]. (2019, June 28).<\/p>\n
Taken by Genevieve Wilson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During everyday life, its easy to take language for granted. You go about your day able to almost seamlessly communicate with others. However, when you\u2019re in a foreign country where you don\u2019t speak the language, it\u2019s impossible not to notice. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6064,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8MxCW-Hp","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1805,"url":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/2019\/06\/04\/fake-it-till-you-learn-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":2691,"position":0},"title":"Fake It till you Learn It","author":"Alicia Brown","date":"June 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Bonjour! Comment allez-vous? (That\u2019s French for Hi! How are you?) During my first week abroad, there have been so many changes: living with new people, exploring a new city, immersing myself in an unknown culture. Through all these changes, the hardest one to adjust to has been learning a new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"gestures\"","block_context":{"text":"gestures","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/tag\/gestures\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/files\/2019\/06\/IMG_3519-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2572,"url":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/2019\/06\/27\/send-me-your-location\/","url_meta":{"origin":2691,"position":1},"title":"Send Me Your Location","author":"Monica Vemulapalli","date":"June 27, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Les Fran\u00e7ais parlent rapidement \u00e0 Paris. This translates to the French speak very fast in Paris. 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During the past few weeks, I have been using all the slang words I\u2019ve learnt. 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The answer I dread occasionally follows, \u201cNon...\u201d The first thought that comes to mind is \u201cI should have kept up with French in elementary school.\u201d Then I\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/2015\/06\/08\/bodies-and-language-the-dynamic-duo\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/files\/2015\/06\/20150602_064511-300x169.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6064"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2691"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2694,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions\/2694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/nbbparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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