The current issue of the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders has published an open access paper announcing the discovery of a new candidate gene linked to language, KIAA0319. The paper is titled, "Convergent genetic linkage and associations to language, speech and reading measures in families of probands with Specific Language Impairment." The gene sits on short... Continue Reading →
Mice With Humanized FOXP2 Have Longer Neurons, Vocalize Differently…
FOXP2 is one of my favorite genes. I studied it extensively while getting my Master's degree and wrote about it several times on Anthropology.net. For those that do not know much about it, I'll quickly introduce it. FOXP2 is a transcription factor gene, which means it controls the expression and regulation of many other genes.... Continue Reading →
CNTNAP2 Variant Linked To Language Impairment
Today's issue of Nature has a brief essay on the role of language in cultural evolution. The authors touch up on a lot basics, such as anatomical localization of brain activity related to language and tool making, FOXP2, and how language has helped humans pass on cultural information more effectively than any other form of... Continue Reading →
Questioning the level of modern human contamination in the Neandertal FOXP2 gene sequence
One of my favorite papers from last year was the investigation of FOXP2 allele in Neandertals. It seems like it was one of your favorite papers too, that post gets a lot of hits still! That being said, I think we'll all appreciate a brand new paper (in works) on this specific topic. It was... Continue Reading →
Neandertals have the same mutations in FOXP2, the language gene, as modern humans
FOXP2 is thought to be a language gene. It is highly conserved in most mammals but in humans there are two unique mutations in the protein caused by nucleotide substitutions at positions 911 and 977 of exon 7. It is thought to be a language gene because humans who have one FOXP2 copy have speech... Continue Reading →
