Timing the integration of utterance duration and task shift in a case of genetic anomaly implicating 7q31 with language disorders

Conference item

The most basic biological endowment needed for communication is that which allows the brain to copy sounds. This requires having an auditory pathway that responds to changes in the environment and a motor system that times muscular changes within a limited time scale. In this experiment we mea- sure the significant differences observed between the performance of a subject (A), affected by a genetic anomaly (a t[7;11] [p13;p13] along with a pericen- tromeric inversion with rupture points in 7p13 and 7q31), and a control subject (C) matched for sex, age, schooling, and linguistic and socioeco- nomic background. For this experiment the subjects repeat 253 different nonsensical utterances. We measure the deviation of each subject from each given utterance with respect to two clocks: the total utterance time and the number of task shifts. We look at 9 possible integrative types these two clocks produce and determine how A and C differ in each of them. Since 7q31 is the locus for FOXP2 (which could be consequently mutated in A), this experiment could be of interest for understanding how genes affect path- ways involved in regulating the timing of muscular activity as a response to auditory stimulation.

Authors: Garcia-Bellido, P; Benítez Burraco, A; Park, K; Molineaux, B

• Publication status: Not published
• Peer review status: Not peer reviewed
• Keywords: Interval timing; language disorders; 7q31