How Unique You Are! -Unequaled Communication Skills

Other parts of the brain also contribute to our uniqueness.  Behind our prefrontal cortex is a strip stretching across the head-the motor cortex.  It contains billions of neurons that connect with out muscles. It too has features that contribute to our being far different from apes or other animals.  The primary motor cortex gives us "(1) And exceptional capability to use the hand, the fingers, and the thumb to perform highly dexterous manual tasks, and (2) use of the mouth, lips, tongue, and facial muscles to talk." -Guyton's Textbook of Medical Physiology.

Consider briefly how the motor cortex affects you ability to speak. Over half of it is devoted to the organs of communication. This helps to explain the unparalleled communication skills of humans. Though our hands play a role in communication (in writing, normal gestures, or sign language), The mouth usually plays the major part.  Human speech-from baby's first word to the voice of an elderly person-in unquestionably a marvel.  Some 100 muscles in the tongue, lips, jaw, throat, and chest cooperated to produced countless sounds.  Note this contrast:  One brain cell can direct 2,000 fibers of an athlete's calf muscle, but brain cells for the voice box may concentrate on only 2 or 3 muscle fibers. Does that not suggest that our brain is specially equipped for communication?

Each short phrase that you utter requires a specific pattern of muscular movements.  the meaning of a single expression can change depending upon the degree of movement and split-second timing of scores of different muscles.  "At a comfortable rate," explains speech expert Dr. William H. Perkins,  "we utter about 14 sounds per second.  That's twice as fast as we can control out tongue, lips, jaw, or any other parts of  our speech mechanism when we move them separately .  But put them altogether for speech and they work the way fingers of expert typists and concert pianist do. Their movements  overlap a symphony of exquisite timing."

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From the book: Is There a Creator That Cares About You?