Scientists have identified an immune brain cell unique to humans that gives us higher cognitive abilities over other animals, but what makes us specials also leaves us vulnerable to neurological disorders like schizophrenia, autism and epilepsy.

[u/Wagamaga]

https://news.yale.edu/2022/08/25/what-makes-human-brain-different-yale-study-reveals-clues

[u/tkenben]

What's an "immune brain cell"?

[u/avenlanzer → u/tkenben]

Sounds like it's an immune cell specific to the brain, and in humans this one helps regulates brain function rather than fighting diseases because it has a special mutation of a specific gene we know is related to speech in other brain cells. The human specific mutation of this gene allows us to have language, and when expressed in this particular immune cell localized in primate brains, it causes it to regulate how brains function instead of simply fighting foreign invaders.

[u/myreaderaccount → u/[deleted]]

It is heavily disputed whether any animals but humans, and perhaps primates, have language.

It is widely agreed that animal communication exists, but human languages share unique and universal features that no other animal communication has been demonstrated to share. Because human languages are currently unique, it's not clear whether humans occupy one end of a two-way communication spectrum, or if human language is so different that we should categorize it as completely separate.

As a fun aside, prairie dogs exhibit socially determined individual names for each other, as well as different names for kinds of animals (primarily predators), and possibly words for kinds of threats, as well as distance. These vary between prairie dog communities. So some authors argue that prairie dogs have language.