{"id":489689,"date":"2026-05-17T21:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T21:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/489689\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T21:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T21:19:11","slug":"scientists-discover-ancient-language-switches-hidden-in-human-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/489689\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Discover Ancient \u201cLanguage Switches\u201d Hidden in Human DNA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Human<\/a>HAQERs are ancient genetic regulators that play a major role in language ability but remained stable due to evolutionary tradeoffs. Scientists are now studying how genetics and environment interact in language development. Credit: Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Researchers have identified tiny genetic \u201cswitches\u201d that appear to play a surprisingly large role in human language ability.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Researchers at University of Iowa Health Care<\/a> have identified specific genetic sequences that play an unusually large role in human language ability. These sequences developed before humans and Neanderthals split from a common ancestor.<\/p>\n

Jacob Michaelson, PhD, senior author of the study and a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, describes language as a defining feature of Homo sapiens. While many animals communicate, humans have a unique ability to create and adapt language. His team, including first author Lucas Casten, PhD, set out to understand how genetic regulatory elements called Human Ancestor Quickly Evolved Regions (HAQERs) influenced this development.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing is how a very small part of the genome can have an outsized influence, not just on who we were as a species, but on who we are as individuals,\u201d He explains that HAQERs make up less than one-tenth of one percent of the genome, yet they have about 200 times more impact on language ability than other regions.<\/p>\n

These regions help build the brain\u2019s biological structure, or \u201chardware,\u201d while language itself functions as the \u201csoftware.\u201d<\/p>\n

Decades of Research and DNA Analysis<\/p>\n

The findings, published in Science Advances, build on research from the 1990s led by Bruce Tomblin, PhD. Tomblin studied 350 students in Iowa, carefully recording their language abilities and collecting saliva samples for future DNA analysis. Years later, Michaelson\u2019s lab used those samples in NIH-funded research to examine how genetic differences relate to language skills.<\/p>\n

This analysis allowed the team to explore how HAQERs affect a person\u2019s ability to use language.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese aren\u2019t genes we\u2019re talking about. They\u2019re regulatory regions that act like the volume knob on genes,\u201d Michaelson explains. He adds that the findings connect to earlier work on the FOXP2 gene, which was once thought to play a major role in language disorders. \u201cSo, if the HAQERs are like volume knobs that can be turned, FOXP2 is one of the hands that is turning these volume knobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jacob<\/a>Jacob Michaelson, PhD, professor of psychiatry with University of Iowa Health Care, led a study showing that modern humans share genomic innovations for complex language with ancient Neanderthals. Credit: University of Iowa Health Care<\/p>\n

To study these effects in more detail, the researchers created an evolutionary-stratified polygenic score (ES-PGS), which separates genetic influences based on when they appeared in evolutionary history. Using computational methods, they analyzed changes across 65 million years.<\/p>\n

Ancient Genetic Traits and Neanderthal Links<\/p>\n

The results showed that these genetic \u201cvolume knobs\u201d were also present in Neanderthals and may have been even more pronounced in them than in modern humans. This suggests that HAQERs are ancient features that contributed to language-related abilities, even though Neanderthals likely differed in overall cognitive function.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis HAQERs aspect, a sliver of the genome, has remained relatively constant, even as other aspects have been going up and up and up to make modern humans smarter and smarter,\u201d Michaelson says. \u201cWe can say humans at least had the \u2018hardware\u2019 for language earlier than what we previously thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Combined with archaeological evidence that Neanderthals had culture and organized societies, these findings suggest they may have used complex forms of communication.<\/p>\n

This raises an important question: if HAQERs are so important for language, why did they stop evolving instead of continuing to change?<\/p>\n

Evolutionary Tradeoffs and Brain Development Limits<\/p>\n

The answer appears to involve balancing selection. HAQER-related genetic signals leveled off over time, while other genes linked to cognitive ability continued to evolve. The researchers believe HAQERs support fetal brain development in ways that also increase brain and skull size. Before modern medicine, larger head size made childbirth more dangerous, raising the risk of death for both mother and child.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that early humans maxed out this pathway to developing the kind of brain that could be a vessel for language, and they hit that ceiling pretty early on and then remained stable, while other aspects of genetics that improve brain development for higher intelligence but don\u2019t directly affect fetal brain size continued to evolve,\u201d Michaelson says.<\/p>\n

In other words, human evolution involved a tradeoff. The biological foundation for language could not improve further through HAQERs without increasing risks during childbirth.<\/p>\n

Future Research and Environmental Influences<\/p>\n

Michaelson\u2019s team plans to continue this work by studying the same group of participants, who now have families of their own. This expanded dataset could provide new insight into how language ability is passed down.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we\u2019re interested in is disentangling the environmental input from the genetic input when thinking about how a child masters language,\u201d Michaelson says. He notes that children raised in language-rich environments often show stronger language skills. \u201cUsing that family structure, we hope to separate the direct genetic effects on language and what researchers call \u2018genetic nurture,\u2019 where the parents\u2019 genetics influence the environment they create for their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers also plan to use advanced statistical tools to better isolate how much of language development comes from environmental factors, which could have important clinical applications.<\/p>\n

Reference: \u201cAncient regulatory evolution shapes individual language abilities in present-day humans\u201d by Lucas G. Casten, Tanner Koomar, Taylor R. Thomas, Jin-Young Koh, Dabney Hofammann, Savantha Thenuwara, Allison Momany, Marlea O\u2019Brien, Jeffrey C. Murray, J. Bruce Tomblin and Jacob J. Michaelson, 22 April 2026, Science Advances.
DOI: 10.1126\/sciadv.aed5260<\/a><\/p>\n

The research was funded in part by grants from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, both part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust.<\/p>\n

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