Roger Fouts y la comunicación de los chimpancés en CosmoCaixa Barcelona

El próximo 4 de mayo impartirá una conferencia en CosmoCaixa Barcelona  con el título “Conversando con chimpancés. Cómo la lengua de signos borra la separación entre ellos y nosotros”

El 5 de mayo realizará una visita al Centro de Recuperación de Primates de la Fundación Mona para conocer el trabajo que se lleva a cabo en la rehabilitación y resocialización de primates.

Ya han pasado cuatro años de la muerte de Washoe, la primera chimpancé que aprendió (y enseñó) la lengua de signos para comunicarse con los humanos y con otros chimpancés. Gracias a Washoe, y al resto de su familia chimpancé, se derribó otro de los muros que separaba a humanos de primates: el lenguaje. Roger S. Fouts y Deborah H. Fouts, del Instituto de Comunicación entre Humanos y Chimpancés de la Central Washington University, hablarán de todo ello el próximo 4 de mayo a las 18.30h en CosmoCaixa Barcelona. El objetivo de la charla no solo es dar a conocer las investigaciones que realizaron en los años 70 del siglo XX sobre las capacidades lingüísticas de los chimpancés, sino también exponer las últimas novedades sobre las “lenguas”, dialectos y sistemas gestuales de comunicación de los chimpancés salvajes.

La conferencia se enmarca dentro de los actos de celebración del 10º aniversario de Fundación Mona. En palabras de Olga Feliu, Directora de MONA: “Para nosotros es un honor que el Prof. Fouts haya querido participar en esta conferencia y en venir a conocer nuestro Centro de Recuperación. Siempre es un honor y un orgullo que primatólogos de renombre como los Fouts se interesen por el trabajo que desde hace una década venimos desarrollando para proteger, conservar y rehabilitar a los primates no humanos”. “Una de los aspectos más positivos de los Fouts – prosigue Feliu -  es que han sabido combinar su interés por la investigación con la protección y defensa de los derechos de los primates en particular y los animales en general”. Tal como comenta el Dr. Miquel Llorente, Responsable de Investigación de MONA e investigador del IPHES (Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social): “su visita no es sólo una gran oportunidad para conocer de primera mano los trabajos pioneros sobre capacidades lingüísticas en grandes simios, sino que también será una ocasión inmejorable para poder mostrarle nuestra manera de trabajar en la que combinamos investigación con bienestar animal”.

La conferencia de los Fouts coincidirá con presentación de una exposición fotográfica conmemorativa del 10º aniversario de Fundación Mona que estará presente en CosmoCaixa durante aquella semana.

Detalles de la Conferencia:

Lugar: CosmoCaixa Barcelona. C/ Isaac Newton, 26. 08022 Barcelona

Horario: 18.30h.

Precio: Actividad gratuita. Plazas limitadas. Es necesario reservar la plaza a través de la web de CosmoCaixa

Idioma: Inglés. Servicio de traducción simultánea

Más información:

www.laCaixa.es/ObraSocial

comunicacio@fundacionmona.org; 972 477 618

Chimp and human communication trace to same brain region

An area of the brain involved in the planning and production of spoken and signed language in humans plays a similar role in chimpanzee communication, researchers report online on February 28th in the journal Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press.

“Chimpanzee communicative behavior shares many characteristics with human language,” said Jared Taglialatela of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. “The results from this study suggest that these similarities extend to the way in which our brains produce and process communicative signals.”

The results also suggest that the “neurobiological foundations” of human language may have been present in the common ancestor of modern humans and chimpanzees, he said.

Scientists had identified Broca’s area, located in part of the human brain known as the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), as one of several critical regions that light up with activity when people plan to say something and when they actually talk or sign. Anatomically, Broca’s area is most often larger on the left side of the brain, and imaging studies in humans had shown left-leaning patterns of brain activation during language-related tasks, the researchers said.

“We didn’t know if or to what extent other primates, and particularly humans’ closest ancestor, the chimpanzees, possess a comparable region involved in the production of their own communicative signals,” Taglialatela said.

In the new study, the researchers non-invasively scanned the brains of three chimpanzees as they gestured and called to a person in request for food that was out of their reach. Those chimps showed activation in the brain region corresponding to Broca’s area and in other areas involved in complex motor planning and action in humans, the researchers found.

The findings might be interpreted in one of two ways, Taglialatela said.

“One interpretation of our results is that chimpanzees have, in essence, a ‘language-ready brain,’ ” he said. “By this, we are suggesting that apes are born with and use the brain areas identified here when producing signals that are part of their communicative repertoire.

“Alternatively, one might argue that, because our apes were captive-born and producing communicative signals not seen often in the wild, the specific learning and use of these signals ‘induced’ the pattern of brain activation we saw. This would suggest that there is tremendous plasticity in the chimpanzee brain, as there is in the human brain, and that the development of certain kinds of communicative signals might directly influence the structure and function of the brain.”

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The researchers include Jared P. Taglialatela, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Atlanta, GA, Department of Natural Sciences, Clayton State University, Morrow, GA; Jamie L. Russell, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Atlanta, GA; Jennifer A. Schaeffer, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Atlanta, GA; and William D. Hopkins, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Atlanta, GA, Department of Psychology, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA.

Gene Implicated In Human Language Affects Song Learning In Songbirds

Zebra finch. (Credit: iStockphoto/David Gluzman)

ScienceDaily (Dec. 5, 2007) — Do special "human" genes provide the biological substrate for uniquely human traits, like language?

Genetic aberrations of the human FoxP2 gene impair speech production and comprehension, yet the relative contributions of FoxP2 to brain development and function are unknown.

Songbirds are a useful model to address this because, like human youngsters, they learn to vocalize by imitating the sounds of their elders.

Previously, Dr. Constance Sharff and colleagues found that, when young zebra finches learn to sing or when adult canaries change their song seasonally, FoxP2 is up-regulated in Area X, a brain region important for song learning.

Dr. Sebastian Haesler, Dr. Scharff, and colleagues experimentally reduce FoxP2 levels in Area X before zebra finches started to learn their song. They used a virus-mediated RNA interference for the first time in songbird brains.

The birds, with lowered levels of FoxP2, imitated their tutor's song imprecisely and sang more variably than controls.

FoxP2 thus appears to be critical for proper song development.

These results suggest that humans and birds may employ similar molecular substrates for vocal learning, which can now be further analyzed in an experimental animal system.

Journal citation: Haesler S, Rochefort C, Georgi B, Licznerski P, Osten P, et al. (2007) Incomplete and inaccurate vocal imitation after knockdown of FoxP2 in songbird basal ganglianucleus Area X. PLoS Biol 5(12): e321. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050321

Adapted from materials provided by Public Library of Science.