UCLA

Speech, FOXP2 and the human–chimp divideThe transcription factor FOXP2 is the only gene so far to have been implicated in human speech, yet it differs very little from the chimpanzee equivalent. New experiments reveal differences between the activation of downstream transcriptional targets of FOXP2 in humans and chimpanzees arising from the two amino acid differences between the two forms of FOXP2. The different gene network interactions influenced by each version of FOXP2 are also reflected in the non-overlapping brain expression patterns exhibited by chimps and humans. These data provide support for the idea that evolutionary changes to FOXP2 in the human lineage have direct consequences for human brain development and disease in the central nervous system and may have a critical role in the development of language circuitry in humans.