An area of the brain involved in the planning and production of spoken and signed language in humans plays a similar role in chimpanzee communication, researchers report online on February 28th in the journal Current Biology.
“Chimpanzee communicative behavior shares many characteristics with human language,” said Jared Taglialatela of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. “The results from this study suggest that these similarities extend to the way in which our brains produce and process communicative signals.”
The results also suggest that the “neurobiological foundations” of human language may have been present in the common ancestor of modern humans and chimpanzees, he said.
Scientists had identified Broca’s area, located in part of the human brain known as the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), as one of several critical regions that light up with activity when people plan to say something and when they actually talk or sign. Anatomically, Broca’s area is most often larger on the left side of the brain, and imaging studies in humans had shown left-leaning patterns of brain activation during language-related tasks, the researchers said.
“We didn’t know if or to what extent other primates, and particularly humans’ closest ancestor, the chimpanzees, possess a comparable region involved in the production of their own communicative signals,” Taglialatela said.
In the new study, the researchers non-invasively scanned the brains of three chimpanzees as they gestured and called to a person in request for food that was out of their reach. Those chimps showed activation in the brain region corresponding to Broca’s area and in other areas involved in complex motor planning and action in humans, the researchers found.
The findings might be interpreted in one of two ways, Taglialatela said.
“One interpretation of our results is that chimpanzees have, in essence, a ‘language-ready brain,’ ” he said. “By this, we are suggesting that apes are born with and use the brain areas identified here when producing signals that are part of their communicative repertoire.
“Alternatively, one might argue that, because our apes were captive-born and producing communicative signals not seen often in the wild, the specific learning and use of these signals ‘induced’ the pattern of brain activation we saw. This would suggest that there is tremendous plasticity in the chimpanzee brain, as there is in the human brain, and that the development of certain kinds of communicative signals might directly influence the structure and function of the brain.”
Source: Cell Press
Related stories:
Study shows 3-month-olds are sensitive to emotional cues referring to objects in the world
Scientists have discovered that three-month-old infants are sensitive to emotional signals that refer to objects in the world. It was once thought that young infants could only process social signals that were directed at them. However, in a new study published in
PLoS ONE, researchers from Hunter College and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Scientists show that three-month-old infants go beyond face-to-face social interactions: they even use social cues to process objects in the world around them.
UCLA Study First to Show Autistic Brains Can Be Trained to Recognize Visual and Vocal Cues
To understand the meaning of a conversation, kids automatically do what adults do —besides processing the meaning of words, they unconsciously "read" the expression on a person's face and listen to their tone of voice, then integrate that information with the context at hand to discern meaning, be it humor, anger, irony or straightforwardness.
A frown or a smile? Children with autism can't discern
When we have a conversation with someone, we not only hear what they say, we see what they say. Eyes can smolder or twinkle. Gazes can be direct or shifty. “Reading” these facial expressions gives context and meaning to the words we hear.
Study: Grammar ability hardwired in humans
University of Rochester scientists studying why characteristics of grammar are found in all languages say the use of grammar is hardwired in our brains.
Meet Robo habilis
(PhysOrg.com) -- A European research project has brought the dream of human-like robots closer to reality by creating a human-like arm and hand controlled by an electronic ‘brain’ modelled on the human cerebellum.
One missing gene leads to fruitless mating rituals
Male fruit flies missing a gene for one particular odor receptor become clueless in matters of love, scientists at Duke University Medical Center have discovered.
'Stuffy nose' mouse: A promise to help treat 31 million with sinusitis
Mice with inflamed nasal tissue being tested at a Johns Hopkins laboratory may be unable to tell if something smells bad or good, but their sensory deficit is nothing to turn up a nose at.
It takes nerves for flies to keep a level head
The nerve connections that keep a fly's gaze stable during complex aerial manoeuvres, enabling it to respond quickly to obstacles in its flight path, are revealed in new detail in research published today (22 July 2008).