This document was last modified on
© PhD Students Symposium 2005. All rights reserved.
Prof. Dr. Constance Scharff
Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany
FOXP2 mutations in humans are associated with a disorder that affects both the comprehension of language and it's production, speech. This discovery provided the first opportunity to analyze the genetics of language with molecular and neurobiological tools. The amino acid sequence and the neural expression pattern of FoxP2 are extremely conserved, from reptile to man. This suggests an important role for FoxP2 in vertebrate brains, regardless of whether they support imitative vocal learning or not. The expression patterns pinpoint neural circuits that might have been critical for the evolution of speech and language, including the basal ganglia and the cerebellum. Recent studies in songbirds show that FoxP2 is upregulated postnatally during times of song plasticity in brain nuclei essential for song acquisition. Hence, I argue that FoxP2 is not only critical during brain development but also during periods of vocal plasticity associated with language.