IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0034243.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Derived Allele of ASPM Is Associated with Lexical Tone Perception

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick C M Wong
  • Bharath Chandrasekaran
  • Jing Zheng

Abstract

The ASPM and MCPH1 genes have been implicated in the adaptive evolution of the human brain [Mekel-Bobrov N. et al., 2005. Ongoing adaptive evolution of ASPM, a brain size determinant in homo sapiens. Science 309; Evans P.D. et al., 2005. Microcephalin, a gene regulating brain size, continues to evolve adaptively in humans. Science 309]. Curiously, experimental attempts have failed to connect the implicated SNPs in these genes with higher-level brain functions. These results stand in contrast with a population-level study linking the population frequency of their alleles with the tendency to use lexical tones in a language [Dediu D., Ladd D.R., 2007. Linguistic tone is related to the population frequency of the adaptive haplogroups of two brain size genes, ASPM and microcephalin. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104]. In the present study, we found a significant correlation between the load of the derived alleles of ASPM and tone perception in a group of European Americans who did not speak a tone language. Moreover, preliminary results showed a significant correlation between ASPM load and hemodynamic responses to lexical tones in the auditory cortex, and such correlation remained after phonemic awareness, auditory working memory, and non-verbal IQ were controlled. As in previous studies, no significant correlation between ASPM and cognitive measures were found. MCPH1 did not correlate with any measures. These results suggest that the association between the recently derived allele of ASPM is likely to be specific and is tied to higher level brain functions in the temporal cortex related to human communication.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick C M Wong & Bharath Chandrasekaran & Jing Zheng, 2012. "The Derived Allele of ASPM Is Associated with Lexical Tone Perception," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-8, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0034243
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0034243
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0034243
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0034243&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0034243?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Bendor & Xiaoqin Wang, 2005. "The neuronal representation of pitch in primate auditory cortex," Nature, Nature, vol. 436(7054), pages 1161-1165, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mark R. Saddler & Ray Gonzalez & Josh H. McDermott, 2021. "Deep neural network models reveal interplay of peripheral coding and stimulus statistics in pitch perception," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-25, December.
    2. Falk Lieder & Klaas E Stephan & Jean Daunizeau & Marta I Garrido & Karl J Friston, 2013. "A Neurocomputational Model of the Mismatch Negativity," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(11), pages 1-14, November.
    3. Philip J Monahan & Kevin de Souza & William J Idsardi, 2008. "Neuromagnetic Evidence for Early Auditory Restoration of Fundamental Pitch," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(8), pages 1-6, August.
    4. Gwangsu Kim & Dong-Kyum Kim & Hawoong Jeong, 2024. "Spontaneous emergence of rudimentary music detectors in deep neural networks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    5. R Channing Moore & Tyler Lee & Frédéric E Theunissen, 2013. "Noise-invariant Neurons in the Avian Auditory Cortex: Hearing the Song in Noise," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-14, March.
    6. Daniel Bendor, 2015. "The Role of Inhibition in a Computational Model of an Auditory Cortical Neuron during the Encoding of Temporal Information," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-25, April.
    7. Christophe Micheyl & Paul R Schrater & Andrew J Oxenham, 2013. "Auditory Frequency and Intensity Discrimination Explained Using a Cortical Population Rate Code," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(11), pages 1-7, November.
    8. Oded Barzelay & Miriam Furst & Omri Barak, 2017. "A New Approach to Model Pitch Perception Using Sparse Coding," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(1), pages 1-36, January.
    9. Weiping Yang & Jingjing Yang & Yulin Gao & Xiaoyu Tang & Yanna Ren & Satoshi Takahashi & Jinglong Wu, 2015. "Effects of Sound Frequency on Audiovisual Integration: An Event-Related Potential Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-15, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0034243. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.