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Wernicke's area
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Wernicke's area is one of the two parts of the cerebral cortex linked since the late nineteenth century to speech (the other is the Broca's area). It is traditionally considered to consist of the posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus in the dominant cerebral hemisphere (which is the left hemisphere in about 90% of people).
Location
The Wernicke's area is classically located as the posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus (STG) in the left (or dominant) cerebral hemisphere. This area encircles the auditory cortex on the Sylvian fissure (part of the brain where the temporal lobe and parietal lobe meet). This area is neuroanatomically described as the posterior part of Brodmann area 22.
However, there is an absence of consistent definitions as to its location.[1] Some identify it with the unimodal auditory association in the superior temporal gyrus anterior to the primary auditory cortex.[2] Others include also adjacent parts of the heteromodal cortex in BA 39 and BA40 in the parietal lobe.[3]
Wernicke's area (posterior part of the superior temporal gyrus) is connected to Broca's area via the arcuate fasciculus, a neural pathway, and to the visual cortex via the angular gyrus.
Wernicke and aphasia
Wernicke's area is named after Carl Wernicke, a German neurologist and psychiatrist who, in 1874, hypothesized a link between the left posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus and the reflexive mimicking of words and their syllables that associated the sensory and motor images of spoken words.[4]
He did this on the basis of the location of brain injuries that caused aphasia. Receptive aphasia in which such abilities are preserved is now sometimes called Wernicke's aphasia. In this condition there is a major impairment of language comprehension, while speech retains a natural-sounding rhythm and a relatively normal syntax. Language as a result is largely meaningless (a condition sometimes called fluent or jargon aphasia). However, it is now known that "Wernicke's aphasia" is not caused by damage to the Wernicke's area.[5][1]
Modern views
Neuroimaging suggests the functions earlier attributed to the Wernicke's area occur more broadly in the temporal lobe and indeed happen also in the Broca's area.
| “ |
There are some suggestions that middle and inferior
temporal gyri and basal temporal cortex reflect lexical
processing ... there is consensus that the STG from
rostral to caudal fields and the STS constitute the
neural tissue in which many of the critical computations
for speech recognition are executed ... aspects of
Broca’s area (Brodmann areas 44 and 45) are also
regularly implicated in speech processing.
... the range of areas implicated in speech processing go well beyond the classical language areas typically mentioned for speech; the vast majority of textbooks still state that this aspect of perception and language processing occurs in Wernicke’s area (the posterior third of the STG).[6] |
” |
Footnotes
- ^ a b Bogen JE, Bogen GM. (1976). Wernicke's region--Where is it? Ann N Y Acad Sci. 280:834-43.PubMed
- ^ Démonet JF, Chollet F, Ramsay S, Cardebat D, Nespoulous JL, Wise R, Rascol A, Frackowiak R. (1992). The anatomy of phonological and semantic processing in normal subjects. Brain. 1151753-68.PubMed
- ^ Mesulam MM. (1998). From sensation to cognition. Brain. 121:1013-52. PubMed
- ^ Wernicke K. (1874/1994). The aphasia symptom-complex. Breslau, Cohn and Weigert. Translated in: Eling P, editor. Reader in the history of aphasia. Vol. 4. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; p. 69–89.
- ^ Dronkers NF. Redfern B B. Knight R T. (2000). The neural architecture of language disorders. In MS. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The new cognitive neurosciences (pp. 949–958). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- ^ Poeppel D, Idsardi WJ, van Wassenhove V. (2008). Speech perception at the interface of neurobiology and linguistics. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 363(1493):1071-86. PubMed
See also
The content of this section is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (local copy). It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Wernicke's area" modified April 23, 2009 with previous authors listed in its history.
