把支配語(yǔ)言處理的大腦左半球與偏手性聯(lián)系起來(lái)的一項(xiàng)研究提示,，人類的說(shuō)話能力可能從一種類似于音節(jié)的發(fā)音和手勢(shì)的組合中進(jìn)化出來(lái)。Anne-Lise Giraud及其同事把腦電圖（EEG） 和功能磁共振成像（fMRI）結(jié)合起來(lái),，從而監(jiān)測(cè)了16位人類受試者在靜息或觀看視頻的時(shí)候的大腦活動(dòng),。與收聽(tīng)音節(jié)、基本感覺(jué)處理,、口和手的運(yùn)動(dòng)有關(guān)的大腦區(qū)域在觀看視頻和靜息的時(shí)候都表現(xiàn)出了左腦支配的說(shuō)話的典型活動(dòng)模式,。
這組作者說(shuō)，這些結(jié)果提示這些區(qū)域在硬件上是不對(duì)稱的,，而且可能形成了現(xiàn)代人類的左腦支配的說(shuō)話和語(yǔ)言的基礎(chǔ),。
這組科學(xué)家進(jìn)一步指出，指揮嘴和手的運(yùn)動(dòng)的區(qū)域的大腦活動(dòng)在與音節(jié)——而非音素——語(yǔ)音節(jié)律有關(guān)的頻律方面都有內(nèi)在的相似性,。這組作者說(shuō),，這些發(fā)現(xiàn)提示，大腦具有發(fā)出音節(jié)語(yǔ)音的硬件,，但是需要音素（形成有意義的語(yǔ)言對(duì)比的最小聲音）,，這個(gè)假說(shuō)與有聽(tīng)力和無(wú)聽(tīng)力的新生兒的語(yǔ)言發(fā)展相兼容。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推薦英文摘要：
PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1007189107
Neurophysiological origin of human brain asymmetry for speech and language
Benjamin Morillona, Katia Lehongrea, Richard S. J. Frackowiakb,c, Antoine Ducorpsd, Andreas Kleinschmidte, David Poeppelf, and Anne-Lise Girauda,1
aInstitut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U960-Ecole Normale Supérieure, 75005 Paris, France;
bService de Neurologie, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland;
cNeuroimaging Laboratory, Instituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Santa Lucia, 00179 Rome, Italy;
dCentre de Neuroimagerie de Recherche, H?pital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, 75013 Paris, France;
eInstitut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U992 Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, Commissariat á l’Energie Atomique, NeuroSpin, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France; and
fDepartment of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003
The physiological basis of human cerebral asymmetry for language remains mysterious. We have used simultaneous physiological and anatomical measurements to investigate the issue. Concentrating on neural oscillatory activity in speech-specific frequency bands and exploring interactions between gestural (motor) and auditory-evoked activity, we find, in the absence of language-related processing, that left auditory, somatosensory, articulatory motor, and inferior parietal cortices show specific, lateralized, speech-related physiological properties. With the addition of ecologically valid audiovisual stimulation, activity in auditory cortex synchronizes with left-dominant input from the motor cortex at frequencies corresponding to syllabic, but not phonemic, speech rhythms. Our results support theories of language lateralization that posit a major role for intrinsic, hardwired perceptuomotor processing in syllabic parsing and are compatible both with the evolutionary view that speech arose from a combination of syllable-sized vocalizations and meaningful hand gestures and with developmental observations suggesting phonemic analysis is a developmentally acquired process.
