BBC News put out an interesting article three days ago titled Linguist ‘have different brains’. It says that a new study suggests that people that are good with languages have a difference in brain structure and shape:
Neuroscientists at University College London say they have more “white brain matter” in a part of the brain which processes sound.
Their brains could also be less symmetrical than others.
The assymetry they refer to above occurs in the transverse temporal gyri (Heschl’s gyri). It involves basically the left gyrus being significantly bigger in the faster learners than the slower learners.
In most people (at least most right-handed people), language is localized in the left hemisphere. So the fact that the left Heschl’s gyrus on the faster language learners looks almost twice the size of the one on the slower language learners seems to be a good cause for the enhanced ability to identify different sounds.
They should follow up this research with some sort of study comparing people that are more visually oriented. I know that sometimes in another language I can’t really identify a sound unless I can imagine how it would be written. But then again maybe that’s just me…
Ey! Thanks for this very interesting post!
Just a few comments; even though linguists do have different brains (man, you guys are really twisted!) it is not that the brains are different “before” getting into linguistics (or at least not necessarily) but that they develop differently (very specially the cortical areas as the Heschl’s Gyrus you mention).
This seems to be a general principle; that the development of our brain is basically dependent on the sort of stimuli it receives.
I know, this sounds like an oxymoron (o como una perogrullada en realidad) but it is quite amazing that the brain actually builds itself (I mean, the brain really builds its own neuronal functions and connections!) from the stimuli it receives.
We have just mentioned this in our latest article at funky neuron ( http://bongobundos.blogs.com/funkyneuron/2006/04/the_emotional_s.html ). Hopefully we will go deeper into the (amazing!) implications of this fact.
Thanks again… NY correspondant!
jeeeejeje
Well, I guess it all depends on the particular linguist. If you take into account critical period hypothesis then that development probably stops a little after the onset of puberty. So if a particular linguist’s interest in the field started early then that may well influence said person’s cortical development.
It’s already a well documented fact that brain development is dependent on the stimuli received. A study that come to mind is one in which people that had been blind all their lives underwent brainscans (probably MEG or fMRI, I’m not sure). The scans showed that the areas of the brain normally occupied by the visual cortices were being used mainly for phonological processing.
I’ll try to take a look at that funky neuron article before my logic problem set eats away my own neurons
ah, don’t bother for the funky neuron thing yet; it’s just a piece of nice looking bullshit so far… but it will get better, for sure.
anyway, the thing I was freaking about was the cortical plasticity of Adult brains, not just functionally but structurally as well -which unfortunately to some extent and obviously enough is never as rich and drastic as the plasticity it exists within the ‘window’ marked by the critical period. so no, it’s never again the same but yes, input keeps shaping our gray matter.
the point, if any, was that, well… I have always disliked phrenology I guess.
so, anyway, keep those little neurons well fed for Dougherty’s final!