Natural selection and language genes in humans

In this study we construct lists of candidate genes for articulate language. Analysis of coding regions of over 100 candidate genes for the effects of natural selection (directional episodic selection and relaxed/intensified selection) in the various lineages of primates (thirty-four nonhuman primate species, plus Homo sapiens Neanderthals and Denisovans) revealed a burst of increased selection effects on neural genes at the node leading to the Homo sapiens-Neanderthal-Denisova triad, followed by bursts of selection effects on neural genes related to language in both the Denisovan and Neanderthal lineages. Those latter increases in involvement of neural genes in Neanderthals and Denisovans can be contrasted with the missing or slight response to selection on those same genes in the H. sapiens lineage. The genes involved in these bursts can mostly be classified as involved in synapse structure and maintenance. We develop a hypothesis for how synaptic efficiency could be related to langua..., , # Dryad dataset

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.sbcc2frk5](10.5061/dryad.sbcc2frk5)

## Description of the data and file structure

The data in this collection are supplemental to the paper \"**Natural Selection and Language Genes in Humans\".** DNA sequence matrices for 175 genes for 42 taxa can be found in \"Lang_Supplemental_File1.zip\". All sequences used to construct these matrices were obtained from GENBANK. These matrices were used to perform all tests for selection accomplished in the paper. We used DATAMONKEY ([https://www.datamonkey.org/](https://www.datamonkey.org/)). The study involves an examination of natural selection in these genes some of which are involved in language acquisition. Once we obtained measures of selection, genes obviously under selection were examined for interactions using STRING ([https://string-db.org/)](https://string-db.org/).

### Files and variables

#### File: Language_Supplemental_File1.zip

**Description:** This zip file holds phylogenetic matrices fo..., There are no PPI data in this paper. Individuals are NOT identified.