Scientists, drunk with power, changed the voices of mice by giving them a human version of a specific gene, suggesting that this gene plays a large role in the development of speech and language.
NOVA1 is the gene in question. It’s present in birds and mammals, including humans, which possess a unique version of this gene. Mice have it too, which allows them to emit high-frequency vocalizations that become even more varied and complex in genetically altered mice.
Neuroscientist and physician Robert Darnell and his team at Rockefeller University don’t believe the gene is the end-all-be-all of spoken language, but it’s at least a vital pillar of language development.
Baby mice make little ultrasonic chirping sounds to get their mother’s attention when separated. Later on in life, adult males will make similar high-frequency chirps resembling songs to seduce female mice.
Mice that were “humanized” with the altered NOVA1 continued to chirp as babies and sing as adults, but the “quality and quantity of the chirping was distinctly different in the humanized mice,” according to Darnell. The genetically altered adult male mice sang different songs.
Essentially, by genetically altering their ability to vocalize with the human variant of NOVA1, the researchers were able to provide the male mice with a more robust playlist of romantic songs to choose from when it came time to woo a female mouse.
Ancient ancestors of Homo sapiens lacked this variant, thus explaining why they didn’t spend their days chatting about the weather and exchanging juicy gossip. It was, however, found in the genomes of over 650,000 modern humans from around the world.
This research probably won’t lead to a legion of yapping Stuart Littles, but it does shed light on the importance of NOVA1 in the development of language, especially in how the gene releases proteins that affect other genes that in turn affect the development of language.
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