Essentials: The Neuroscience of Speech, Language & Music | Dr. Erich Jarvis
Andrew Huberman and neuroscientist Erich Jarvis discuss how the brain produces speech and language, drawing on surprising parallels between human vocal learning and songbird behavior.
The gist
-
Speech is controlled by specialized motor pathways linked to hand and gesture circuits, not a separate language module, which is why we gesture while talking.
-
Critical periods for language learning mirror those for motor skills like piano or cycling, and missing them means relearning sounds from scratch as an adult.
-
Jarvis says learning multiple languages as a child keeps more phoneme abilities intact, making it easier to pick up new languages later in life.
-
Regularly moving, singing, dancing, and speaking helps preserve cognitive and language ability into old age by keeping shared motor circuits active.
Andrew, Joe, Mark and Rhonda agree on 39 things
See what they all use, in their own words. Paid ads are left out.
See what they all swear by Or pick your own peopleAlso mentioned
0:11
Stanford School of Medicine
· "I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine"
0:18
Rockefeller University
· "Dr. Erich Jarvis, PhD, a professor and Head of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics of Language at Rockefeller..."
0:18
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
· "an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)"
◎
Related episodes
Episodes covering similar topics
More from Andrew Huberman