Remind me not to travel in space

Lieberman’s joint research with medical school faculty, other colleagues, and Brown University graduate and undergraduate students have revealed a “syndrome” – a pattern of speech motor and cognitive deficits occurs [sic] that derive from impaired subcortical basal ganglia structures. Ongoing studies of Parkinson’s disease, childhood developmental verbal apraxia, Rolandic epilepsy, autism, hypoxic insult to the brain arising from exposure to extreme altitude as climbers ascend Mount Everest, and focal brain lesions provide an opportunity for both graduate and undergraduate students to participate in research. Other studies on speech production have synthesized the vowels that Neanderthals could have uttered. The findings of these studies have been applied to the diagnosis and treatment of these conditions as well as monitoring systems for exposure to high-intensity radiation in space travel, which produces damage to neural circuits involving the basal ganglia.

Philip Lieberman at Brown

I've spent the past year trying to figure out the basal ganglia. (pdf file)

In case you were wondering.

Bonus factoid: Here's what it sounds like when a Neanderthal tries to pronounce a long 'e.'