Uner Tan syndrome

Uner Tan syndrome or UTS is a syndrome discovered by Uner Tan. Persons affected by this syndrome use quadrupedal locomotion. Uner Tan postulated that it was an example "backward evolution" [ Tan, Uner. "A new syndrome with quadrupedal gait, primitive speech, and severe mental retardation as a live moded by this syndrome use walk on for l for human evolution" Int J Neurosci. 2006 Mar;116(3):361-9. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16484061&query_hl=54&itool=pubmed_docsum] ] .

Cases

Ulas family

The family of 19 from rural southern Turkey is the main example. Five of the family are supposedly affected by UTS and walk quadrupedal with their feet and the palms of their hands in what is called a "bear crawl".

Tan claimed that they show characteristics of Uner Tan syndrome [ Tan, Uner. "A new syndrome with quadrupedal gait, primitive speech, and severe mental retardation as a live model for human evolution" Int J Neurosci. 2006 Mar;116(3):361-9. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16484061&query_hl=54&itool=pubmed_docsum] ] .

However, Nicholas Humphrey, John Skoyles, and Roger Keynes have argued that their gait is due to two rare phenomena coming together Humphrey, N., Keynes, R. & Skoyles, J. R. (2005). "Hand-walkers : five siblings who never stood up". Discussion Paper. Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, London, UK. [http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/archive/00000463/01/CPNSS2.pdf] ] . First, instead of initially crawling as infants on their knees, they started off learning to move around with a “bear crawl” on their feet. Second, due to their congenital brain impairment, they found balancing on two legs difficult. Because this, their motor development was channeled into turning their bear crawl into a substitute for bipedality.

Habitualy and genetically UTS differs from disequilibrium (DES - Hagberg et al. (1972)) syndrome. [http://cogprints.org/5858/1/UTS_A_CASE_SERIES%2C_IJN%2C_1%2C_1-26%2C_2008.pdf]

Four males, two females

In January 2008, Tan reported on another family (four males and two females) located in southern Turkey. [http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a787467826~db=all]

Other

Four other unrelated cases in families are [http://cogprints.org/5858/1/UTS_A_CASE_SERIES%2C_IJN%2C_1%2C_1-26%2C_2008.pdf] described in various degrees of UTS among tens of persons. Males are affected more than females. Some individuals are unaware of time, lack language, having severe mental retardation with no conscious experience and communicate by murky sounds. Two males are unable to stand up, while in other cases, can stand up but can not make a step when standing. Less severe cases use toe walking, which is a normal phase in child gait development.

ee also

*Knuckle-walking
*Bipedalism
*Quadruped

Notes