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Learning language with the singalong neurons
MARIE READ/ANIMALS ANIMALS
This week–
Learn to talk with singalong neurons HELEN THOMSON
STICK your tongue out at an infant and he’ll stick his tongue back out at you. Without knowing it, your bundle of joy is showing off his ability to imitate gestures using the mirror neurons in his brain. Now it appears he may use the same neurons to learn how to speak. Mirror neurons fire when a person performs an intentional action – such as picking up a pen – and also when he or she observes someone else performing the same action. Using measurements of neural –I’ll name that tune in one– activity, Richard Mooney from Duke University, North Carolina, and colleagues have identified mirror-like neurons in the forebrain of a bird – the swamp sparrow. These neurons fire both when the songbird sings a series of notes and when it hears the same song sung by another bird. Discussion Meeting This is the first time the Monday 25 and involvement of mirror neurons Tuesday 26 February 2008 has been identified in vocal communication, says Mooney. “If Organised by: a bird hears a song which is similar Professor Barry Everitt FRS to its own, these neurons will fire,” Professor David Nutt he says. “The bird matches its own Professor Trevor Robbins FRS song with that of the stranger and can tell, for example, that it is from the same species or population.” This meeting will explore advances in the understanding of addiction in Importantly, these neurons terms of specific behavioural processes mediated by molecular changes also provide a mechanism for in increasingly-well-defined underlying neural and neurochemical systems vocal learning. When a bird listens which have led to several competing theories that urgently need resolution. to a sound, motor areas of the U.K. and international experts will debate the nature and extent of brain involved in song production addiction, as well as its causes and consequences, including treatment. are activated too. Mooney The meeting is free to attend but pre-registration online is essential. The suggests that these areas are online registration form and programme information can be found at: creating an internal copy of the royalsociety.org/events pattern of mirror neuron firing that accompanies the sound. The Tel: 020 7451 2683 bird uses this to create a “mental Email: [email protected] image” of what a particular sound is like. “Most people have a sense that they can call up of what Registered Charity No 207043 something should sound like,” says Mooney. “Beethoven is a
Neurobiology of addiction: new vistas
14 | NewScientist | 19 January 2008
stunning example, the man spent much of his career largely deaf, but was able to realise fantastic musical compositions.” When a bird recreates a sound, says Mooney, the feedback from its ears will cause mirror neurons to fire. The brain can compare what it hears with its mental image and by detecting differences, can correct any errors (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature06492). “The implications of this research with regard to human language are important,” says Marco Iacoboni of the AhmansonLovelace Brain Mapping Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It makes sense to hypothesise that mirror neurons are also important in human language acquisition.” “There are strong parallels between structures in the songbird forebrain and the human brain,” says Mooney. Embryologically, the
“If a bird hears a song which is similar to its own, mirror neurons will fire. This provides a mechanism for vocal learning” area that contains mirror neurons in the bird is derived from the same structure as the Broca’s area in humans – the region of the brain responsible for language. “I think it’s entirely plausible that the neurons in the Broca’s are working in the same fashion as those in the songbird,” says Clive Frankish, a psychologist at the University of Bristol, UK. “It would not be possible for language to evolve as it has without a type of active imitation process. We’re constantly looking for precursors of language in non-human species that suggest mechanisms for language were in place already, and this could be a vital ingredient of the evolutionary process.” ● www.newscientist.com
This week–
Learn to talk with singalong neurons HELEN THOMSON
STICK your tongue out at an infant and he’ll stick his tongue back out at you. Without knowing it, your bundle of joy is showing off his ability to imitate gestures using the mirror neurons in his brain. Now it appears he may use the same neurons to learn how to speak. Mirror neurons fire when a person performs an intentional action – such as picking up a pen – and also when he or she observes someone else performing the same action. Using measurements of neural –I’ll name that tune in one– activity, Richard Mooney from Duke University, North Carolina, and colleagues have identified mirror-like neurons in the forebrain of a bird – the swamp sparrow. These neurons fire both when the songbird sings a series of notes and when it hears the same song sung by another bird. Discussion Meeting This is the first time the Monday 25 and involvement of mirror neurons Tuesday 26 February 2008 has been identified in vocal communication, says Mooney. “If Organised by: a bird hears a song which is similar Professor Barry Everitt FRS to its own, these neurons will fire,” Professor David Nutt he says. “The bird matches its own Professor Trevor Robbins FRS song with that of the stranger and can tell, for example, that it is from the same species or population.” This meeting will explore advances in the understanding of addiction in Importantly, these neurons terms of specific behavioural processes mediated by molecular changes also provide a mechanism for in increasingly-well-defined underlying neural and neurochemical systems vocal learning. When a bird listens which have led to several competing theories that urgently need resolution. to a sound, motor areas of the U.K. and international experts will debate the nature and extent of brain involved in song production addiction, as well as its causes and consequences, including treatment. are activated too. Mooney The meeting is free to attend but pre-registration online is essential. The suggests that these areas are online registration form and programme information can be found at: creating an internal copy of the royalsociety.org/events pattern of mirror neuron firing that accompanies the sound. The Tel: 020 7451 2683 bird uses this to create a “mental Email: [email protected] image” of what a particular sound is like. “Most people have a sense that they can call up of what Registered Charity No 207043 something should sound like,” says Mooney. “Beethoven is a
Neurobiology of addiction: new vistas
14 | NewScientist | 19 January 2008
stunning example, the man spent much of his career largely deaf, but was able to realise fantastic musical compositions.” When a bird recreates a sound, says Mooney, the feedback from its ears will cause mirror neurons to fire. The brain can compare what it hears with its mental image and by detecting differences, can correct any errors (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature06492). “The implications of this research with regard to human language are important,” says Marco Iacoboni of the AhmansonLovelace Brain Mapping Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It makes sense to hypothesise that mirror neurons are also important in human language acquisition.” “There are strong parallels between structures in the songbird forebrain and the human brain,” says Mooney. Embryologically, the
“If a bird hears a song which is similar to its own, mirror neurons will fire. This provides a mechanism for vocal learning” area that contains mirror neurons in the bird is derived from the same structure as the Broca’s area in humans – the region of the brain responsible for language. “I think it’s entirely plausible that the neurons in the Broca’s are working in the same fashion as those in the songbird,” says Clive Frankish, a psychologist at the University of Bristol, UK. “It would not be possible for language to evolve as it has without a type of active imitation process. We’re constantly looking for precursors of language in non-human species that suggest mechanisms for language were in place already, and this could be a vital ingredient of the evolutionary process.” ● www.newscientist.com