New research shows that the brains of humans undergo similar genetic changes when learning languages when compared to birds’ brains while learning songs. From Science News:
Jarvis’ team analyzed tissue from throughout the brains of three humans, measuring the amount of particular molecules made by a given gene to determine how active it is. They compared the results with brain tissue from bird species capable of vocal imitation and song learning — such as songbirds, hummingbirds and parrots — as well as birds that don’t, such as doves and quails.
The vocal-learning birds and humans share a distinct pattern of activity in roughly 40 genes in analogous regions called Area X in birds and the anterior striatum at the base of the forebrain in humans. These structures are involved in imitation.
The team also found similar patterns of activity in a different set of about 40 genes in regions involved in speech and song production. For birds that was in the robust nucleus of the acropallium, or RA nucleus, and for humans, the laryngeal motor cortex. Previous studies have found connections between the laryngeal motor cortex, which is located in a part of the brain that controls voluntary movement, and brainstem nerve cells that control muscles of the larynx, the organ that produces sound. Similar connections have been found in the analogous regions of bird brains.