Scientists decode possible origin of human speech
New York, July 23: Researchers have discovered neural circuits in the brains of rhesus macaque monkeys that could represent a common origin for social communication, including human speech.
The findings showed that these circuits are involved in face recognition, facial expression and emotion and they may very well have given rise to our singular capacity for speech.
The team, from the Rockefeller University in New York City, used a novel experimental setup to take MRI scans of the brains of monkeys as they watched video clips of other monkeys making communicative facial expressions.
When the monkeys in the clips made a friendly lip-smacking gesture, the subject monkeys responded in kind -- but only when their pre-recorded peers appeared to be making direct eye contact with them.
Besides, the face-perception regions of the monkeys' brains that simply feed information to a region associated with emotion did not shuttle information to one another in straightforward, sequential fashion, said Winrich Freiwald, scientists at the varsity.
The videos that simulated social interaction through direct eye contact caused an unexpected third neural circuit to light up.
This suggests that specific areas of the animals' brains are sensitive to social context, and perform the specialised cognitive functions necessary for social communication.
Generating a friendly lipsmack, in particular, activated a region that resembles Broca's area -- a portion of the human brain concerned with the production of speech.
This suggests that monkey facial expressions like lipsmacks might be evolutionary precursors to human speech -- a possibility that some scientists had previously discounted on the grounds that such gestures were too simple or reflexive to pave the way for something as subtle and sophisticated as human verbal communication, Freiwald explained, in the paper reported in the journal Neuron.
Currently, the researchers are measuring the electrical activity in individual neurons in all three of the networks revealed in the scans.
"Understanding this in monkeys will help us understand communication in humans, where things are so much more complicated," says Freiwald, who describes the findings as "an important building block" in the quest to understand our species' unique way with words.
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Two more infants die, toll in Jhansi medical college fire rises to 17
Jhansi (UP) (PTI): Two more infants rescued from a fire that ripped through the Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College here have died, taking the total toll in the blaze to 17, a senior official said on Sunday.
Thirty-nine newborns were rescued from a devastating fire in the medical college hospital's neonatal intensive care unit on the night of November 15.
Dr Narendra Singh Sengar, the medical college's principal, told PTI that of the 39 infants rescued, two more died on Saturday.
While 10 babies died on the night of the fire, the remainder succumbed to their "illnesses", he said.
A post-mortem of the two bodies was done on Saturday and the cause of death was confirmed as "illness" in both cases. The bodies have been handed over to the family members, Sengar said.
The birth weight of both infants was 800 grams and one of them also had a hole in the heart, he added.
Meanwhile, Congress sources said on Sunday that the party's state chief Ajay Rai and Barabanki MP Tanuj Punia would travel to Jhansi and visit the medical college. They will also meet the families whose babies died in the fire.
