Why is Tourette Syndrome so weird?

Tourette Syndrome is the butt of a lot of jokes, but this disorder has a much deeper story to tell! The story of Tourette’s is the story of what makes us human. A picture is beginning to emerge from decades of research on Tourette Syndrome—drawing connections between the structure of our brains, memory, the motor system, language, tools, and our evolutionary history.
Follow me as I dive down this rabbit hole—and see how strange the story gets!

Chapters
00:00 – Intro
1:49 - What is Tourette Syndrome?
4:02 - The Neuroscience of Tourette’s
5:18 - Tourette’s and Speech
6:04 - Words and Rules
9:33 - Tools and Procedures
10:52 - Stone Age Technology
13:31 - Language and Tools
16:06 – The Big Picture
16:56 – Tourette’s Tragic End
17:53 – Outtro

Sources
Dye et al. (2016). A verbal strength in children with Tourette syndrome? Evidence from a non-word repetition task.
Graybiel & Grafton (2015). The Striatum: Where Skills and Habits Meet.
Kern et al. (2015). Shared Brain Connectivity Issues, Symptoms, and Comorbidities in Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and Tourette Syndrome.
Kulik, Reyes & Sherwood (2023). Coevolution of language and tools in the human brain: An ALE meta-analysis of neural activation during syntactic processing and tool use.
Martins et al. (2019). Recursion in action: An fMRI study on the generation of new hierarchical levels in motor sequences.
Morgan et al. (2015). Experimental evidence for the co-evolution of hominin tool-making teaching and language.
Pinker & Ullman (2002). The past and future of the past tense.
Rickards & Cavanna (2019). Gilles de la Tourette: The man behind the syndrome.
Stern et al. (2000). A functional neuroanatomy of tics in Tourette Syndrome.
Stout et al. (2000). Stone Tool-Making and Brain Activation: Position Emission Tomography (PET) Studies.
Takács et al. (2018). Is procedural memory enhanced in Tourette syndrome? Evidence from a sequence learning task.
Thibault et al. (2021). Tool use and language share syntactic processes and neural patterns in the basal ganglia.
Vannest, Polk & Lewis (2005). Dual-route processing of complex words: New fMRI evidence from derivational suffixation.
Walenski et al. (2007). Speeded processing of grammar and tool knowledge in Tourette’s syndrome.
Worbe et al. (2012). Functional immaturity of cortico-basal ganglia networks in Gilles de la Tourette syndrome.

Video clips
What about Bob? (1991)
Emory University: Stone Age Hand Axe Shaped by Complex Brain
   • Stone Age Hand Axe Shaped by Complex ...  
PrehistoricSkills: Levallois technic - Prehistoric stone Tools
   • Levallois technic - Prehistoric stone...  
biointeractive: Stone Tool Technology of Our Human Ancestors — HHMI BioInteractive Video
   • Stone Tool Technology of Our Human An...