The discovery of the FOXP2 brain gene, a mutation of which can cause language loss, was met with considerable excitement when it was announced over a decade ago.

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The form of the story, through its language and tone, must then honor that loss without drifting into parody on one side or melodrama on the other with melodrama being the lesser crime.

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Rankin and her team focused on a a specific type of neurodegenerative disease called frontotemporal dementia, or FTD, a group of disorders in which patients can experience behavioral symptoms such as personality changes, a loss of inhibition and social tact as well as language difficulties, such as an inability to understand words.

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Dementia is a loss of brain function and affects memory, thinking, language, judgment and behavior.

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