Environments organize the verbal brain

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 550-551 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Charles Catania

AbstractFOXP2 expression in the evolution of language derives from its role in allowing vocal articulation that is sensitive to its consequences. The discrete verbal discourse it allows must have evolved recently relative to affective features of vocal behavior such as tone of voice. Because all organ systems must have evolved in the service of behavior, attention is given to ways in which environments may have driven brain organization.

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Locke

It has long been asserted that the evolutionary path to spoken language was paved by manual–gestural behaviors, a claim that has been revitalized in response to recent research on mirror neurons. Renewed interest in the relationship between manual and vocal behavior draws attention to its development. Here, the pointing and vocalization of 16.5-month-old infants are reported as a function of the context in which they occurred. When infants operated in a referential mode, the frequency of simultaneous vocalization and pointing exceeded the frequency of vocalization-only and pointing-only responses by a wide margin. In a non-communicative context, combinatorial effects persisted, but in weaker form. Manual–vocal signals thus appear to express the operation of an integrated system, arguably adaptive in the young from evolutionary times to the present. It was speculated, based on reported evidence, that manual behavior increases the frequency and complexity of vocal behaviors in modern infants. There may be merit in the claim that manual behavior facilitated the evolution of language because it helped make available, early in development, behaviors that under selection pressures in later ontogenetic stages elaborated into speech.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara De Gregorio ◽  
Filippo Carugati ◽  
Daria Valente ◽  
Teresa Raimondi ◽  
Valeria Torti ◽  
...  

The complexity of primates’ singing behavior has long gathered the attention of researchers interested in understanding the selective pressures underpinning the evolution of language. Among these pressures, a link between territoriality, pair-living, and singing displays has been suggested. Historically, singing primates have been found in a few taxa that are not closely related to each other, and, in the last years, their phylogeny has dramatically changed. Hence, we aimed at understanding if the dogmatic association between territorial behavior and a monogamous social structure still holds in the light of current research. Moreover, singing behavior has often been considered a whole, but animals can perform different singing forms depending on how many individuals call simultaneously. Currently, it is unclear to which extent these singing forms are widespread among these primate groups. Given that there is no unique definition for a song, solo, duet, and chorus, we envisioned some of the most used descriptions. We then formulated some new definitions that we followed in our review of the presence/absence of these different forms of song organization among singing primates’ taxa. In particular, we suggested that tarsier species that are typically considered non-singers may indeed sing, and we pointed out that non-duetting gibbons may perform duet interactions. We found that, besides duets, chorusing behavior and solo songs are essential features of primates’ communication, but their study is still in a descriptive phase. Moreover, while territorial behavior seems to be conserved in these singing taxa, we highlighted that the monogamous social structure is not the rule. Pair-living plus multi- females groups displaying singing behavior are common too. We suggest that ending to consider these taxa as uniform in their sociality and vocal behavior might be a significant turning point to unravel the different selective pressures that influenced the emergence and organization of such peculiar vocal behavior.


Author(s):  
Benjamin F. Trump ◽  
Irene K. Berezesky ◽  
Raymond T. Jones

The role of electron microscopy and associated techniques is assured in diagnostic pathology. At the present time, most of the progress has been made on tissues examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and correlated with light microscopy (LM) and by cytochemistry using both plastic and paraffin-embedded materials. As mentioned elsewhere in this symposium, this has revolutionized many fields of pathology including diagnostic, anatomic and clinical pathology. It began with the kidney; however, it has now been extended to most other organ systems and to tumor diagnosis in general. The results of the past few years tend to indicate the future directions and needs of this expanding field. Now, in addition to routine EM, pathologists have access to the many newly developed methods and instruments mentioned below which should aid considerably not only in diagnostic pathology but in investigative pathology as well.


Author(s):  
T. L. Benning ◽  
P. Ingram ◽  
J. D. Shelburne

Two benzofuran derivatives, chlorpromazine and amiodarone, are known to produce inclusion bodies in human tissues. Prolonged high dose chlorpromazine therapy causes hyperpigmentation of the skin with electron-dense inclusion bodies present in dermal histiocytes and endothelial cells ultrastructurally. The nature of the deposits is not known although a drug-melanin complex has been hypothesized. Amiodarone may also cause cutaneous hyperpigmentation and lamellar lysosomal inclusion bodies have been demonstrated within the cells of multiple organ systems. These lamellar bodies are believed to be the product of an amiodarone-induced phospholipid storage disorder. We performed transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy dispersive x-ray microanalysis (EDXA) on tissue samples from patients treated with these drugs, attempting to detect the sulfur atom of chlorpromazine and the iodine atom of amiodarone within their respective inclusion bodies.A skin biopsy from a patient with hyperpigmentation due to prolonged chlorpromazine therapy was fixed in 4% glutaraldehyde and processed without osmium tetroxide or en bloc uranyl acetate for Epon embedding.


Author(s):  
C. S. Potter ◽  
C. D. Gregory ◽  
H. D. Morris ◽  
Z.-P. Liang ◽  
P. C. Lauterbur

Over the past few years, several laboratories have demonstrated that changes in local neuronal activity associated with human brain function can be detected by magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy. Using these methods, the effects of sensory and motor stimulation have been observed and cognitive studies have begun. These new methods promise to make possible even more rapid and extensive studies of brain organization and responses than those now in use, such as positron emission tomography.Human brain studies are enormously complex. Signal changes on the order of a few percent must be detected against the background of the complex 3D anatomy of the human brain. Today, most functional MR experiments are performed using several 2D slice images acquired at each time step or stimulation condition of the experimental protocol. It is generally believed that true 3D experiments must be performed for many cognitive experiments. To provide adequate resolution, this requires that data must be acquired faster and/or more efficiently to support 3D functional analysis.


2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 4-5

Abstract Spinal cord (dorsal column) stimulation (SCS) and intraspinal opioids (ISO) are treatments for patients in whom abnormal illness behavior is absent but who have an objective basis for severe, persistent pain that has not been adequately relieved by other interventions. Usually, physicians prescribe these treatments in cancer pain or noncancer-related neuropathic pain settings. A survey of academic centers showed that 87% of responding centers use SCS and 84% use ISO. These treatments are performed frequently in nonacademic settings, so evaluators likely will encounter patients who were treated with SCS and ISO. Does SCS or ISO change the impairment associated with the underlying conditions for which these treatments are performed? Although the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides) does not specifically address this question, the answer follows directly from the principles on which the AMA Guides impairment rating methodology is based. Specifically, “the impairment percents shown in the chapters that consider the various organ systems make allowance for the pain that may accompany the impairing condition.” Thus, impairment is neither increased due to persistent pain nor is it decreased in the absence of pain. In summary, in the absence of complications, the evaluator should rate the underlying pathology or injury without making an adjustment in the impairment for SCS or ISO.


2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Richard T. Katz

Abstract This article addresses some criticisms of the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides) by comparing previously published outcome data from a group of complete spinal cord injury (SCI) persons with impairment ratings for a corresponding level of injury calculated using the AMA Guides, Sixth Edition. Results of the comparison show that impairment ratings using the sixth edition scale poorly with the level of impairments of activities of daily living (ADL) in SCI patients as assessed by the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) motor scale and the extended FIM motor scale. Because of the combinations of multiple impairments, the AMA Guides potentially overrates the impairment of paraplegics compared with that of quadriplegics. The use and applicability of the Combined Values formula should be further investigated, and complete loss of function of two upper extremities seems consistent with levels of quadriplegia using the SCI model. Some aspects of the AMA Guides contain inconsistencies. The concept of diminishing impairment values is not easily translated between specific losses of function per organ system and “overall” loss of ADLs involving multiple organ systems, and the notion of “catastrophic thresholds” involving multiple organ systems may support the understanding that variations in rating may exist in higher rating cases such as those that involve an SCI.


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