Womb as Paradise Lost

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Womb as Paradise Lost – Foetal Programming
Thetic Part 1 – Philosophical Introduction
FOXP2 gene. 61 Peretz opens with her text the problem of functionality between
music and speech. She points to the well-known family with genetic disorders of
speech, the scientific pointer “KE-family”, a family as an important object of
research. 62 It is outside the theme of my research to deepen the problems of this
family, so I will limit my remarks with a single conclusion, just like Peretz in her
paper: “Interestingly, the speech disorder experienced by the KE-family is not
language specific. It also affects oral movements. Hence we may wonder if the
mutation of the FOXP2 gene also affects vocal abilities such as singing (…). This
gene seems to play a causal role in the development of normal brain circuitry that
underlies language and speech. (…) Hence, music and speech may have common
origins after all (…) Thus the available data are compatible with the idea that
there are two innate factors, guiding the acquisition of the musical capacity, with
one related to “temporal sequencing” (and possibly related to FOXP2) and the
other, “pitch sequencing” (of which genes remain to be determined). 63
3.4 Music and language innate, but exclusive human
phenomena?
Architecture of the basal ganglia model. Two cortico-basal ganglia loops are
modelled, representing two levels of decision making: a cognitive loop in blue,
and a motor loop in red. Each loop consists of a focused, positive feedback, direct
pathway loop [cortex-striatum-globus pallidus (GPi)-thalamus-cortex] and a divergent,
negative feedback, hyper direct pathway loop [cortex-sub thalamic nucleus
(STN)-GPi-thalamus-cortex].
61 Isabelle Peretz in a keynote paper for “Language and music as cognitive systems”: University of Montreal, Canada,
2008, page 2.
62 See for this subject matter the literature.
63 Peretz, op.cit. page 2