Every mammal and many other animals have a larynx with the potential to make sounds. In communication, these regions serve to convey information that will influence the listener's behavior, that is, to attract, repel, inform, or warn (Bright, 1984). Among these many types of sounds, some animals appear capable of producing more complex learned vocalizations, while most are limited to rudimentary, innate vocalizations (Jarvis, 2004). The distinction between innate and learned vocalization is not completely rigid, but there appear to be linguistic and neuroanatomical distinctions that separate them. Linguistically, learned vocalizations are often synonymous with greater variation and communicative flexibility, whereas unlearned vocalizations are not. Therefore, very basic forms of squeals, ultrasonic sounds, ultrasonic whistles, coughs, snorts, and growls appear to be common among most animals capable of unlearned vocalizations, such as the South American tapir, panda, mice, birds, and others. (Jarvis, 2004; Gaub et al., 2010). Some innate vocalizations among the more agonistic sounds, such as growling and roaring, appear to be widespread among many mammals and are not related to body size, habitat, or laryngeal structure (Jarvis, 2006). In addition to these basic, innate forms of vocalization, learners, but not non-learners, tend to produce more varied frequency modulation and syntax (Okanoya, 2002). There appear to be a select few species capable of learned vocalization. These include the parrot, hummingbird and songbird on the one hand, and humans, bats, cetaceans and elephants on the other (Jarvis, 2006). Interestingly, each of these vocal learners appears to be at the peak of their predatory chai...... middle of paper ......urs in the facial motor cortex (Gracco et al., 2005). Furthermore, activation in Broca, dlPFC, aSMA is greater when linguistic tasks are more complex, including learning the vocalization of new words or sentences, complex syntax, etc. (Buckner et al., 1999). Furthermore, low-threshold electrical stimulation of the facial motor cortex, Broca syndrome, or aSMA causes speech arrest or the generation of phonemes or words (Ojemann, 1991). Low-threshold electrical stimulation of the ventral lateral and anterior nuclei of the thalamus, particularly in the left hemisphere, leads to word repetition, speech arrest, speech acceleration, spontaneous speech, or verbal aphasia (Johnson and Ojemann, 2000). Finally, song learning in humans is accompanied by greater activation of anterior premotor cortical and striatal regions compared to the simple production of already learned songs (Brown et al.., 2006).