Study of bats could help humans

SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Scientists in Texas hope the study of bat brains may eventually lead to better hearing aids or new treatments for human speech disorders like stuttering.

Using ultrasonic microphones, researchers at the University of Texas and Texas A&M have discovered bats combine sounds into a basic sort of syntax that they use to communicate and express their individuality, The San Antonio Express-News reported Monday.

"There are no animals that can kind of speak," says Michael Smotherman, a neurophysiologist at Texas A&M who is trying to identify the areas of the brain the bat uses to coordinate sounds into songs.

Smotherman hopes his research will lead to better understanding of stuttering a dysarthria, a speech disorder characterized by poor articulation.

At the University of Texas in Austin, bat researcher George Pollak is trying to understand how the bats process the social communication sounds they hear and how they recognize individual calls.

Pollak says his research could lend itself to developing hearing aids that differentiate and screen out background noise.