Where is Broca's area?

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

What is speech? Why did monkeys suddenly begin to "talk" and become humanized back in the era of dinosaurs? Why do people communicate with words? These and other questions arise among researchers around the world, but not all pundits agreed that speech is a necessary measure. There is an opinion that the ancient people themselves did not want to talk, they quite liked to communicate with the help of inarticulate sounds and gestures, but … nature needed it that way. Most experts say that the “guilty” of our ability to speak is not nature at all, but the brain itself. Broca's area and Wernicke's area are the parts of the brain responsible for communication and recognition of information. But even knowing this, psychologists do not calm down, because how these two zones operate - jointly or separately, being responsible for different processes - is still unknown.

Speech as a product of brain activity

There is an opinion that conversation is a psychological process, since the average person just needs to communicate with someone, evenit will even be an animal. He needs to know that he is being heard. For this reason, people who are afraid to be alone talk to themselves - this is how they get the impression of a mutual dialogue.

Speech is a way of knowing the world around you, allowing you to feel like a part of it. Broca's zone already mentioned above provides us with the opportunity to listen, understand and respond to the interlocutor's remark. Only this is not always enough for an adequate conversation, since in addition to understanding, you also need a well-trained voice, vocabulary, the ability to accurately convey your thoughts and a number of other requirements.

Paul Broca and his discovery

This great man devoted his entire life to studying the human brain. During his lifetime, he joked with himself, saying that he loves his own clinic a little less than the laboratory in which he spends all his free time. He was an anthropologist, a neurosurgeon, and an ethnographer. Broca's area was opened by a surgeon during the treatment of two elderly men in his hospital. One of them had been ill for more than twenty years: lack of speech, paralysis of the right arm and leg - these are still a small part of the lesions that were noticed by Paul.

The second patient arrived at the clinic with a hip fracture, as it turned out, a few years ago, the man had a seizure, due to which he lost the ability to speak. Subsequently, the poor fellow could only pronounce five words from his native French language.

Today, surgeons would immediately diagnose a lesion in Broca's area, and in those days (early 19th century) this part of the brain was not even knownheard, therefore, did not try to treat. But Paul immediately realized that the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for our speech. In this regard, numerous studies have been carried out that have shown the correctness of the researcher's arguments. The non-functioning area of the brain in these two patients was appropriately named "Broca's area". Field's activity only became the starting point in the study of our brain, after which a huge number of experiments were carried out.

Broca's area

Have you ever wondered where the area responsible for the ability to speak is located? Broca's area is located in the posterior inferior part of the third frontal gyrus of the left hemisphere in people who write with their right hand. For lefties, the opposite is true.

With the help of this center we can talk, more precisely, build sentences correctly. For example, young children do not always express their thoughts in an accessible way, since their Broca's area is not as developed as in adults, due to little communication experience. This part of the brain is presented as a kind of analyzer, which primarily perceives useful information and reproduces it. Damage to this area is called aphasia. The expression “cannot connect two words” vividly characterizes this disease, since a person literally cannot transform a series of words into a sentence.

Wernicke Region

This area is not without reason described in one article with the section mentioned above, because it mostly serves to understand and “digest” information. If Broca's area is inlobe of the forehead in the left hemisphere, then Wernicke's area can be located both in the right and in the left hemisphere in the upper temporal region.

Moreover, problems with this part of the brain are also called aphasia, but here a person simply cannot understand a single word even from his native language. He hears absolutely everything, but he cannot reveal the meaning of what was said, in other words, he seems to hear foreign words. Because of this, problems arise with the construction of one's own speech: it seems incomprehensible, the words are chosen as if at random and sometimes have several meanings. However, the patient himself does not suspect that he speaks incomprehensibly, therefore he is very often upset because other people cannot answer him normally. At the same time, understanding of the commands directed to the muscles is preserved, for example: “Close your eyes.”

Scientists' opinions

At first, scientists agreed that Broca's area is responsible for reproducing information, giving a person the opportunity to speak, and Wernicke's area - for understanding someone else's speech. However, it is now believed that both centers affect both understanding and reproduction, therefore, problems with one will inevitably lead to problems with the other.

How to improve speech zones?

Practice and only practice! You need to monitor your speech and pay attention to your mistakes as often as possible. Talking to yourself with speech problems will also not be superfluous. Reading books and listening to famous classics can also help. But still, if youfelt that the problem has become widespread, you should contact a specialist to prevent more serious diseases. Modern medicine offers many drugs and procedures that will prevent the development of aphasia in Broca's and Wernicke's areas.