Spiznet
Tue, Jul-25-06, 17:17
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=17820-
&in_page_id=2 Monday, July 24, 2006
There may be a reason why humans love watching and listening
to monkeys chatter.
Macaque monkeys have a strangely human way of listening to the
sounds of their mates, a study has found. When the primates
call out to each other they make use of the brain regions used
by humans for language processing, the research revealed.
The discovery supports the theory that the origins of language
go back a long way, to a creature that pre-dated humans and
modern monkeys.
Dr James Battey, director of the National Institute on
Deafness and Other Communication Disorders in the US, said:
'This finding brings us closer to understanding the point at
which the building blocks of language appeared on the
evolutionary timeline.
'While the fossil record cannot answer this question for
us, we can turn to the here and now - through brain imaging
of living non-human primates - for a glimpse into how
language, or at least the neural circuitry required for
language, came to be.'
While monkeys do not possess language, they can communicate
signals about food, identity, or danger to other members of
their species using cries and squawks.
In humans, the two main brain regions involved in language
encoding are known as Broca's area and Wernicke's area.
Broca's area is situated in the frontal lobe of the brain with
Wernicke's area behind it.
Although monkeys are not able to perform the mental activities
required for speaking human languages, their brains possess
regions that are structurally similar to these two areas.
Scientists measured brain activity in the macaques using a
positron emission tomography scan, which tracks blood flow.
Scans were taken of three monkeys as they listened to the
recorded screams of other macaques.
The findings were published in the journal Nature
Neuroscience.
&in_page_id=2 Monday, July 24, 2006
There may be a reason why humans love watching and listening
to monkeys chatter.
Macaque monkeys have a strangely human way of listening to the
sounds of their mates, a study has found. When the primates
call out to each other they make use of the brain regions used
by humans for language processing, the research revealed.
The discovery supports the theory that the origins of language
go back a long way, to a creature that pre-dated humans and
modern monkeys.
Dr James Battey, director of the National Institute on
Deafness and Other Communication Disorders in the US, said:
'This finding brings us closer to understanding the point at
which the building blocks of language appeared on the
evolutionary timeline.
'While the fossil record cannot answer this question for
us, we can turn to the here and now - through brain imaging
of living non-human primates - for a glimpse into how
language, or at least the neural circuitry required for
language, came to be.'
While monkeys do not possess language, they can communicate
signals about food, identity, or danger to other members of
their species using cries and squawks.
In humans, the two main brain regions involved in language
encoding are known as Broca's area and Wernicke's area.
Broca's area is situated in the frontal lobe of the brain with
Wernicke's area behind it.
Although monkeys are not able to perform the mental activities
required for speaking human languages, their brains possess
regions that are structurally similar to these two areas.
Scientists measured brain activity in the macaques using a
positron emission tomography scan, which tracks blood flow.
Scans were taken of three monkeys as they listened to the
recorded screams of other macaques.
The findings were published in the journal Nature
Neuroscience.