In 10 seconds? Researchers have found that mastering the use of physical tools and language skills rely on the same brain region… and that training in one domain improved performance in the other.

What’s the discovery? According to a 2021 study, tool-use planning and syntax processing in language activate similar patterns of activity in the brain region called the basal ganglia. Furthermore, learning in one domain transfers over to the other: Tool-use training improves linguistic performance, and sentence training improves motor performance. This finding shows that motor processes and language share common brain resources.

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