engleski

Can mice help us understand speech development?

It has been proposed that the FoxP2 gene has an important role in the function of neural-circuitries which enable speech processing. Since the human variant of the gene has been experimentally introduced into the mice genome (Enard et al, Cell 137:861, 2009) we are now able to follow fenotipic changes in the morphology of neurons supposed to be the main elements of circuitries involved in speech processing. In this lecture we would like to present a model of “humanized Foxp2 mice” and critically evaluate possibilities for using this model to better understand biological correlates of speech development in humans. First data indicate that in humanized mice there is a correlation between level of Foxp2 expression and an increase in dendritic complexity of various neuronal types (Reimers-Kipping et al, Neuroscience 175:75, 2011). In collaboration with research group of Svante Paabo (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig) we intend to perform a detailed analysis of neuron morphology in several genetically different lines of “humanized Foxp2 mice” with intention to correlate changes in neuron morphology with amino-acid substitutions that appear in the evolution of Foxp2 gene between apes and humans.

Foxp2 gene; neural-circuitries; speech development

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