One of the most intriguing positions in the evolution debate is that schizophrenia is the price that Homo sapiens pays for language. Language and schizophrenia are both unique traits of the human species and are equally distributed around the world. Crow proposed a common origin, back in a genetic mutation able to alter the anatomical and functional hemispheric balance, fixed in the sexual X chromosome about 100,000 years ago (Crow, 2000). Several facts support his thesis: the distribution of handedness among the normal and the psychotic population (Gur and Gur, 1977), the dating of the supralaryngeal vocal tract specialization (Lieberman, 1991; Lieberman, 2002), and the finding of FOXP2 as a putative genetic correlate (Enard et al., 2002). However, there are two drawbacks to Crow’s theory, one concerning the evolution history and another the linguistic characterization of schizophrenia. On the first point, while schizophrenia and language are human specific, lateralization is not; here we propose a hypothesis about language origin and schizophrenia etiology linked to the faculty allowed by language to represent world and reality through meaning interpretation.

La schizofrenia è il prezzo che l'Homo sapiens paga al linguaggio? Lateralizzazione e schizofrenia

PENNISI, Antonio;BUCCA, ANTONINO;FALZONE, Alessandra
2003-01-01

Abstract

One of the most intriguing positions in the evolution debate is that schizophrenia is the price that Homo sapiens pays for language. Language and schizophrenia are both unique traits of the human species and are equally distributed around the world. Crow proposed a common origin, back in a genetic mutation able to alter the anatomical and functional hemispheric balance, fixed in the sexual X chromosome about 100,000 years ago (Crow, 2000). Several facts support his thesis: the distribution of handedness among the normal and the psychotic population (Gur and Gur, 1977), the dating of the supralaryngeal vocal tract specialization (Lieberman, 1991; Lieberman, 2002), and the finding of FOXP2 as a putative genetic correlate (Enard et al., 2002). However, there are two drawbacks to Crow’s theory, one concerning the evolution history and another the linguistic characterization of schizophrenia. On the first point, while schizophrenia and language are human specific, lateralization is not; here we propose a hypothesis about language origin and schizophrenia etiology linked to the faculty allowed by language to represent world and reality through meaning interpretation.
2003
9788878201811
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11570/1668987
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