The cost of language: functionally over-dominant language circuits in the human brain may limit cognitive abilities and non-verbal executive functions

Hans-Peter Lipp^*

• Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Evolutionarily, the most recent connective system in the human brain is the language circuitry. However, its presence may impose restrictions on higher executive functions apparent as non-verbal talents in art, science, and management– essentially a conflict between talking and doing. Since the associative cortex underlies thinking, the question then is how much of it is assigned to language functions, and how much is left for associative networks that support nonverbal functions such as planning and parallel processing. Arguments: (i) The determinant of neocortical network organization is the motor cortex, which acts as the main attractor for all processes in the hemispheres yet is split in two sub-attractors formed by disproportionally enlarged zones of origins for two bundles, the corticospinal tract co-driving movements of arms and hands, and the corticobulbar tract to the motor nuclei of the cranial nerves innervating the vocal tract, tongue and face. ii) This arrangement must entail different functional properties of the associated networks. The language network faces executive limits because the linear generation of words becomes dominated by cerebellar feedback from lingual processing (“one word generates the next”), while the non-verbal networks have more freedom in generating mental goals and movements. (iii) Functional imbalance between these neocortical networks results from altered connections caused by neuronal competition during brain development, either by epigenetic events or by selectable genetic factors. (iv) The descent of the larynx in humans during the paleolithic period and the following self-domestication and neoteny during the last 30,000 years have favored the expansion of the cerebral language network. Voices gained prosody and melody, thereby transmitting fine-grained levels of emotions between individuals, facilitating the evolution of collective cooperation in agricultural economies. On the other hand, with the advent of highly populated kingdom states, emotional voicing also enabled mass control of people for warfare and social stratification of societies. This new environment entailed genetic adaptation of a large population segment resulting in moderately lowered cognition, firstly by expansion of the language network permitting emotional association of simple memes and words, possibly supported by additional mechanisms conserving a child-like stage of brain development responsible for word-linked beliefs.