ArticleeLife2021
Distinct neural networks for the volitional control of vocal and manual actions in the monkey homologue of Broca's area.
Article in eLife, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Inhibitory control of speech production in the human premotor frontal cortex.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Investigating the role of the left inferior frontal gyrus in language evolution: insights from comparative neuroscience.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Review
- The neurobiology of vocal communication in marmosets.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2023Review
- Specialized Networks for Social Cognition in the Primate Brain.Annual review of neuroscience · 2023Review
- Evolution of cortical geometry and its link to function, behaviour and ecology.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Spontaneous vocal coordination of vocalizations to water noise in rooks (Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Broca's cerebral asymmetry reflects gestural communication's lateralisation in monkeys (eLife · 2022Article
- Faces and Voices Processing in Human and Primate Brains: Rhythmic and Multimodal Mechanisms Underlying the Evolution and Development of Speech.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Review
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
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Abstract
The ventrolateral frontal lobe (Broca's area) of the human brain is crucial in speech production. In macaques, neurons in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, the suggested monkey homologue of Broca's area, signal the volitional initiation of vocalizations. We explored whether this brain area became specialized for vocal initiation during primate evolution and trained macaques to alternate between a vocal and manual action in response to arbitrary cues. During task performance, single neurons recorded from the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the rostroventral premotor cortex of the inferior frontal cortex predominantly signaled the impending vocal or, to a lesser extent, manual action, but not both. Neuronal activity was specific for volitional action plans and differed during spontaneous movement preparations. This implies that the primate inferior frontal cortex controls the initiation of volitional utterances via a dedicated network of vocal selective neurons that might have been exploited during the evolution of Broca's area.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.