The use of tools and language are related. A new study has now shown that both abilities rely on the same neurological resources, which are found in the same region of the brain. Furthermore, motor training using tools improves our ability to understand the syntax of complex sentences and, conversely, syntax training improves our competence in using the tools.
Our ability to understand the syntax of complex sentences is one of the language skills more difficult to acquire. In 2019, research revealed a correlation between being particularly adept at using tools and having good syntactic ability.
The study, conducted by researchers from Inserm, CNRS, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and Université Lumière Lyon 2 in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, has now shown that both skills are based on the same neurological resources, which are found in the same region of the brain . This study was published in November 2021 in the journal Science. These findings could be clinically applied to support the rehabilitation of patients who have lost some of their language skills.
Language has long been considered a very complex skill, which mobilizes specific brain networks. However, in recent years, scientists have revisited this idea. Research suggests that areas of the brain, which control certain language functions, such as processing the meanings of words, are also involved in the control of motor skills. However, brain imaging has provided no evidence of such links between language and the use of tools.
Paleoneurobiology also showed that brain regions associated with language increased in our ancestors during times of technology boom, when the use of tools became more widespread. Considering these data, the research teams could not help but wonder: what if the use of certain tools, which involve complex movements, relied on the same brain resources as those mobilized in complex linguistic functions such as syntax?
Syntax tools and exercises
In 2019, Inserm researcher Claudio Brozzoli in collaboration with CNRS researcher Alice C. Roy and their team demonstrated that individuals particularly adept at using the tools were also generally better at handling the finer points of syntax. Swedish.
To investigate the topic, the same team, in collaboration with CNRS researcher Véronique Boulenger, developed a series of experiments that were based on brain imaging techniques (functional magnetic resonance or magnetic resonance) and behavioral measurements. Participants were asked to complete several tests consisting of motor training with pliers 30 cm long and syntax exercises in French. This allowed the scientists to identify brain networks specific to each task, but also common to both tasks.
They first discovered that instrument manipulation and syntax exercises produced brain activations in common areas, with the same spatial distribution, in a region called the basal ganglia.
Since these two types of skills use the same brain resources, is it possible to train one to improve the other? Does motor training with mechanical grippers improve understanding of complex sentences? In the second part of their study, the scientists looked into these problems and proved that this is indeed the case.
This time, participants were asked to perform a syntactic understanding task before and after 30 minutes of motor training with pliers. With this, the researchers demonstrated that motor training with the tool leads to improved performance in syntactic comprehension exercises.
Furthermore, the results show that the opposite is also true: language training, with exercises for understand sentences with complex structure, improvement of motor performance with the instrument.
Scientists are now thinking about how to best apply these findings in the clinical setting. “We are currently developing protocols that could be put in place to support the rehabilitation and recovery of language skills of patients with relatively preserved motor skills, such as young people with language development disorders. In addition to these innovative applications, these findings also give us an insight into how the language has evolved throughout history. When our ancestors began to develop and use tools, this skill profoundly changed the brain and imposed cognitive demands that could have led to the emergence of certain functions such as syntax, ”concludes Brozzoli.
Motor training involved using pliers to insert small pegs into the corresponding holes to their shape but with different orientations. The syntax exercises you completed before and after this training consisted of reading sentences with a simple syntax, such as “The scientist who admires the poet writes an article” or with a more complex syntax, such as “The scientist, who admires the poet, writes an article.”
Then the participants had to decide whether statements such as “The poet admires the scientist” were true or false. Sentences with the French relative object pronoun “que” are more difficult to process and therefore performance was generally poorer.
These experiments show that after motor training, participants did best with sentences that were considered more difficult. The control groups, who performed the same language task but after motor training with bare hands or without any training, showed no such improvement.
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