Four years ago, a finding that defects in a single gene could severely impair language set off a race to learn what the gene, FOXP2, could reveal about language's neural basis. 1 After the gene was ...

Mutations in the FOXP2 gene cause severe speech and language disorder. FOXP2 encodes a protein that regulates the switching on and off of other genes. It is not yet clear why mutations of FOXP2 mainly ...