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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (16960)	4/21/2004 6:10:28 PM
From: zonkie	Respond to of 81568

Everybody knows that juniors daddy suffers from the same abnormality that afflicts junior has but just to a lesser degree. Both are verbally challenged. If what it says in the following article is true it might be something that junior inherited from junior senior. These researchers have been studying birds to learn about speech disorder, maybe they should be studying bushes. _____________________________ excerpt...more at link In humans, FoxP2 seems to play a vital role in the development of the brain. Rare mutations of the FoxP2 gene have been found in a few individuals in an English family, who have trouble understanding and producing language. Those affected by the mutation have structural abnormalities in the brain. Humans and songbirds share the natural ability to creatively vary the sounds they make, said Stephanie A. White, assistant professor of physiological sciences and co-author of the study. Though many organisms, such as fruit flies, express FoxP2, they do not express the ability to modify vocalizations independently. "You can train other primates for years and years and get them to make new sounds, and it's a lot of work," White said. "We do it naturally." FoxP2 is expressed in different tissues besides the brain and, in the past, has been studied for a suspected role in lung development. FoxP1 and FoxP2 are both part of a family of genes called transcription factors, which regulate other genes. "(FoxP2) is necessary but not sufficient (for human speech)," White said, confirming that there are other factors that have not yet been discovered. "We're just really beginning to learn what the connections are between genes that encode language and the language that people use," said Susan Curtiss, professor of linguistics, who was not involved with the study, but researches neurolinguistics and language acquisition. "We have a good idea that certain speech disorders have some genetic component to them, for example, stuttering," Curtiss said. In addition to stuttering, the cause of another speech disorder called Specific Language Impairment is also thought to be rooted in genetics. SLI can occur without the other symptoms of mental retardation or social impairment. The mutation of the FoxP2 gene is of interest to scientists because it is the first case where a mutation of a single gene gives rise to a speech disorder, White said. Many genes – some which have not yet been identified – are responsible for language acquisition and use. "Language ... is a complex trait," White said. In addition to spoken language, disorders can affect written language as well. Developmental dyslexia and other written language disorders also seem to have some genetic components, Curtiss said. Written language disorders and speech disorders are often closely associated with each other. "Many children who have SLI end up getting labeled as developmentally dyslexic," Curtiss said. "But it is not the case that every developmental dyslexic has SLI." Although genetics contribute to the likelihood of these disorders, many other environmental factors could cause them as well. Further research into the similarities between songbirds and humans at the level of genes may reveal evolutionary relationships. "We have a correlation so far that gives us the green light to test whether parallel mechanisms have evolved in both humans and songbirds that enable vocal learning," White said. dailybruin.ucla.edu