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Gestures, grunts and hoots may not rival a Shakespeare sonnet, but the area of the brain generating this jungle-wild language of chimpanzees is structurally the same as the communications-oriented part of the human brain called planum temporale (PT). This brain region may attend to processing communicative information regardless of its modality- gestural/visual, physical/tactile, vocal/auditory, or otherwise - and is thought to be an epicenter within a dispersed mosaic of language-related regions in the cerebral cortex.
The planum temporale is normally bigger on the left side of the brain (called "left hemisphere predominance") and is more pronounced than any other human brain asymmetry. The PT and its particular characteristics in controlling communication behaviors are widely accepted by scientific communities as being uniquely human.
The researchers believe that this pre-hominid brain trait diverged in its evolution from chimps when early human ancestors moved from their limited, localized territories to become wide-ranging bipeds in a busy world that demanded novel communication skills. Dr. Gannon contends that, apparently, "this area of the brain doesn't care where the information is coming from -- just that it's communication."
Other scientists interpret the new evidence to mean that while chimps and other great apes may have more complex communications systems than previously thought, these systems still don't constitute language. They believe that while we may have a fundamentally similar ancestral brain area, the PT region did not evolve a functional role in communication-related tasks in chimpanzees as it did in humans, and that it serves some other purpose. While further research will illuminate the debate, the Mount Sinai research suggests that functions of the PT further evolved independently in humans and chimps to serve each species' growing cognitive and communicative needs. The scientific methods used by the Mount Sinai investigative team include:
This particularly newsworthy research reveals insights into the origins of human language and speech, including the organization of language-related areas of the brain and their design, origin and evolution. It also raises ethical challenges for neuroscience and other research which utilizes living apes. Dr. Gannon says, "I don't know if you've ever met a chimp, but they are pretty amazing creatures, very sophisticated!" For more information please see: "Asymmetry of Chimpanzee Planum Temporale: Humanlike Pattern of Wernicke's Brain Language Area Homolog". Patrick J. Gannon, Ralph L. Holloway, Douglas C. Broadfield, and Allen R. Braun Science 1998 January 9; 279: 220-222. |
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This research is funded by Physical Anthropology. |
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