Broca’s Area

Broca’s  area is regarded among the major areas of the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for the enhancement of language. This brain region was named after Paul Broca who was a French neurosurgeon that discovered the function associated with this area of the brain as he was examining patients encountering language difficulties (Rutten, 2017). Broca’s area is located in the forebrain division.

Broca’s area is tasked with several functions including speech control, language processing and facial neuron control. Language and speech processing are complex functions taking place in the brain. Several areas of the brain play a critical role in the enhancement of language and speech comprehension. Broca’s area on its part helps humans to communicate their ideas accurately through speech as it is involved with enhancement of language (Rutten, 2017).

Wernicke’s Area

Wernicke’s area, on the other hand, is also recognized as a major area in the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for language comprehension (Rutten, 2017). Spoken language is usually understood in this area of the brain. The Wernicke’s area is well connected to the Broca’s; which is also contained in the cerebral cortex. The Wernicke’s area is located in the lower part of the left frontal lobe. Given that the Broca’s area helps to control motor functions associated with speech production, the combination of this two brain areas makes it possible for people to speak as well as process, interpret and understand written and spoken language.

The Wernicke’s area functions include language comprehension, language recognition, semantic processing and language interpretation. Since the Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas complement each other, the two areas are connected the arcuate fasciculus, which is a group of nerve fibers bundled together. The discovering of the Wernicke’s area was brought about by the curiosity of neuroscientists as to why various abilities were localized in the brain. This localization was acting to suggest that certain abilities like producing and understanding language were under the control of designated brain parts (Rutten, 2017). Carl Wernicke discovered this part of the brain while observing people with the damaged posterior temporal lobe. These were patients that could actually speak but did not have the ability to comprehend language. While observing these brain patients, Carl Wernicke identified lesions at a junction of the temporal, parietal, occipital lobes.

Source: www.nidcd.nih.gov

Effect of Damage to these Parts

Damage to the Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas results in aphasia. This is a disorder that comes about when areas of the brain responsible for language are damaged. Aphasia is something that normally occurs suddenly in the aftermath of a head injury or stroke. However, sometimes it can develop gradually as a result of a progressive neurological disease or brain tumor (Freberg, 2009). This disorder tends to affect the understanding and expression of language coupled with reading and writing. Sometimes aphasia has the ability to co-occur with speech disorders like apraxia of speech or dysarthria.

In most cases, the people affected by aphasia are middle-aged or even older though anyone can be affected even the children. In the United States, about 1 million people are currently struggling with the disorder. Based on the National Aphasia Association, close to 180,000 Americans tend to acquire the disorder every year (NIDCD, 2017). Aphasia can be caused by the damage to either one or more language areas in the brain. Despite there being several causes as mentioned above, stroke is known to be the main cause of the disorder. A stroke comes about when a leaking or a blood clot or burst vessel tends to cut blood flow to these parts of the brain. When blood cells do not receive sufficient blood supply, they tend to die. This is because blood helps to transport oxygen and other valuable nutrients (Freberg, 2009). Brain injury can be caused by other factors too that include Alzheimer’s disease, gunshot wounds, brain tumors, blows to the head among others.

Aphasia can be grouped into two broad categories; nonfluent and fluent. However, there are other types within these two groups. Damage occurring to the temporal lobe usually results in Wernicke’s aphasia. This is the most common type of fluent aphasia. Individuals suffering from Wernicke’s aphasia tend to speak in long and complete sentences that do not have a meaning while adding unnecessary words. Some of the times these people tend to create made-up words in the process. Given this occurrence, it becomes difficult to follow what the people suffering from the disorder are trying to say (NIDCD, 2017). Despite this being obvious, individuals with Wernicke’s aphasia are not aware of their speaking mistakes.

Broca’s aphasia, on the other hand, is the common form of nonfluent aphasia. Broca’s aphasia tends to primarily affect the brain’s frontal lobe. People suffering from this disorder usually have paralysis of the leg and arm or right-sided weakness since the frontal lobe is also vital for motor movements. These people will understand the speech and have an idea of what to say, but end up speaking in short phrases usually produced with great effort. There is the tendency to omit words such as “the”, “is” and “and”. Since people suffering from Broca’s aphasia can understand other people’s speech, they are usually aware of the difficulties that they are experiencing (Freberg, 2009). As a result, these people can easily become frustrated.

Current Research on these Areas

Current research is continuing to focus on the Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas to help bring about new information that will be beneficial moving forward. Researchers are being involved with testing new types involving speech-language therapy for people experiencing both recent and chronic aphasia. This is being done to identify if there are new techniques that can help these people to recover word retrieval, tone, grammar and other varied aspects of speech (NIDCD, 2017).

Some of the new techniques/methods revolve around the improvement of the cognitive abilities that help to support processing of language, like attention and short-term memory. There are others that involve activities responsible for stimulating representations of words, sounds and sentences. This is meant to make them easier for access and retrieval.

Researchers are also indulging in the exploration of drug therapy, which is acting as an experimental approach in the treatment of aphasia. Some of the studies involved are meant to test whether the drugs that affect the brain’s chemical neurotransmitters can be combined with speech-language therapy to help in the improvement of recovery for varied language functions (Rutten, 2017).

There are other research prospects that are trying to focus on the use of advanced imaging methods like fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). This is being used to help in the understanding of how language is processed in the damaged and normal brain as this will help in understanding the recovery processes. This is the type of research that has the ability to advance people’s knowledge of how areas responsible for understanding language and speech reorganize after the occurrence of brain damage(NIDCD, 2017). Results from this research could bring about implications on aphasia’s diagnosis and treatment in conjunction with other neurological disorders.

Noninvasive brain stimulation combined with speech-language therapy has also emerged as a new area of interest with aphasia research. TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) and TDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation) are other two main stimulation methods that can temporarily alter normal brain action in regions being stimulated. Initially, researchers were using these methods to help understand those parts of the brain playing the role in language and then recovery after stroke. Currently, researchers are now studying if the temporary alteration of brain activity can help affected people to re-learn the use of language. There are various clinical trials being funded by NIDCD to help test these technologies.

References

Freberg, L. (2009). Discovering biological psychology (2nd ed.). Cengage Learning.

NIDCD. (2017). Aphasia. National Institute on Deafness andOther Communication Disorders (NIDCD). Retrieved 7 December 2017, from https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/aphasia

Rutten, G. (2017). The Broca-Wernicke doctrine: A Historical and ClinicalPerspective on Localization of Language Functions. Springer.

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