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A newly discovered circuit controls two actions that are required for vocalization: narrowing of the larynx and exhaling air from the lungs. The researchers also found that this vocalization circuit is under the command of a brainstem region that regulates the breathing rhythm, which ensures that breathing remains dominant over speech. “When you need to breathe in, you have to stop vocalization. We found that the neurons that control vocalization receive direct inhibitory input from the breathing rhythm generator,” says Fan Wang, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences, a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the senior author of the study.
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A large-scale study carried out in 15 countries by researchers at MIT and the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics provides evidence of a degree of universality in music perception and cognition. It also provides a glimpse of the variation that can occur across cultures. The senior author of the study, published recently in Nature Human Behaviour, is Josh McDermott, an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences and a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines.
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In the brains of polyglots — people who speak five or more languages — the same language regions light up when they listen to any of the languages that they speak. In general, this network responds more strongly to languages in which the speaker is more proficient, with one notable exception: the speaker’s native language. When listening to one’s native language, language network activity drops off significantly, according to a new study.