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[Josh Greenman <josh.greenman AT gmail.com>]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/12/chimps_speech_gene/

Brain-delving boffins in key monkey-butler breakthrough

Inability of apes to understand drinks orders probed

By Lewis Page

Posted in Biology, 12th November 2009 11:54 GMT

In a development with potentially immense consequences in the
important area of monkey butlers, boffins have identified the crucial
genetic differences which permit humans to employ speech and deny this
ability to chimpanzees, our closest genetic cousins.

According to Dr Daniel Geschwind of the David Geffen School of
Medicine at UCLA, the reason that chimps can't understand orders for
drinks lies in the gene FOXP2. Both humans and chimps have this gene,
but in chimps it is different. If FOXP2 is mutated in humans, speech
difficulties result.

"Earlier research suggests that the amino-acid composition of human
FOXP2 changed rapidly around the same time that language emerged in
modern humans," says Geschwind, currently doing a tour as a visiting
boffin at King's College London. "We showed that the human and chimp
versions of FOXP2 not only look different but function differently
too," continues the prof. "Our findings may shed light on why human
brains are born with the circuitry for speech and language and chimp
brains are not."

Though the research involved slicing up human and chimp brains,
neither species was harmed in the experiments - the brains were taken
from owners who had died of natural causes, according to lab
spokesmen.

By probing the brains, Geschwind and his colleagues determined that
FOXP2 "switches other genes on and off". The other genes affected by
FOXP2 are termed "gene targets".

"We found that a significant number of the newly identified targets
are expressed differently in human and chimpanzee brains," Geschwind
said. "This suggests that FOXP2 drives these genes to behave
differently in the two species."

The first author of the research, postdoc Genevieve Konopka - also of
UCLA - expands on the implications of the boffins' brain probe:

"Genetic changes between the human and chimp species hold the clues
for how our brains developed their capacity for language," she says.
"By pinpointing the genes influenced by FOXP2, we have identified a
new set of tools for studying how human speech could be regulated at
the molecular level."

Quite apart from perhaps imparting in mankind's future hominid
servants the crucial ability to teach one another their duties, ("How
many monkey butlers will there be?" "One at first, but he'll train
others",) the scientists believe their work could lead to cures for
autism and schizophrenia.

The research is published this week in prestigious boffinry mag Nature. ®

* We do know that chimpanzees aren't monkeys. But "chimpanzee butler"
doesn't sound right, somehow.