Broca's area

Examples of Broca's area in the following topics:

• Human Language and the Brain

  • Broca's area, located in the frontal lobe of the brain, is linked to speech production, and recent studies have shown that it also plays a significant role in language comprehension.
  • Broca's area works in conjunction with working memory to allow a person to use verbal expression and spoken words.
  • Damage to Broca's area can result in productive aphasia (also known as Broca's aphasia), or an inability to speak.
  • Patients with Broca's can often still understand language, but they cannot speak fluently.
  • The areas of the brain necessary for processing language: Broca's area, Wernicke's area, the primary motor cortex, the posterior middle temporal gyrus, and the middle and posterior superior temporal gyrus.

• Cerebral Hemispheres and Lobes of the Brain

  • Another portion, Broca's area, underlies the ability to produce (rather than understand) speech.
  • Patients with damage to Wernicke's area can speak clearly but the words make no sense, while patients with damage to Broca's area will fail to form words properly and speech will be halting and slurred.
  • These disorders are known as Wernicke's and Broca's aphasia respectively; an aphasia is an inability to speak.
  • The locations of Broca's and Wernicke's areas in the brain.
  • The Broca's area is at the back of the frontal lobe, and the Wernicke's area is roughly where the temporal lobe and parietal lobe meet.

• Overview of the Cerebrum

  • These functions originate within the primary motor cortex and other frontal lobe motor areas where actions are planned.
  • Damage to motor areas of cortex can lead to certain types of motor neuron disease.
  • Motor portions of language are attributed to Broca's area within the frontal lobe.
  • Speech comprehension is attributed to Wernicke's area, at the temporal-parietal lobe junction.
  • Damage to the Broca's area results in expressive aphasia (non-fluent aphasia) while damage to Wernicke's area results in receptive aphasia.

• Association Areas

  • Language abilities are localized in the left hemisphere in Broca's area for language expression and Wernicke's area for language reception.
  • The association areas are organized as distributed networks, and each network connects areas distributed across widely spaced regions of the cortex.
  • The association areas integrate information from different receptors or sensory areas and relate the information to past experiences.
  • Then the brain makes a decision and sends nerve impulses to the motor areas to elicit responses.
  • Locations of brain areas historically associated with language processing.

• Studying the Brain

  • For example, damage to a part of the brain called Broca’s area causes patients to lose the ability to speak; knowing this, we can infer that that part of the brain is in some way related to language production.

• Aphasia

  • Examples of well-known aphasia subtypes are Broca's aphasia, also called expressive aphasia, and Wernicke's aphasia, also called receptive aphasia.
  • The area and extent of brain damage or atrophy determines the type of aphasia and its symptoms.
  • Individuals with expressive aphasia (also called Broca's aphasia) have lesions to the medial insular cortex.
  • These are the areas primarily responsible for language and injury leads to an inability to process speech.

• Hypothalamus

  • The hypothalamus (derived from the Greek for "under chamber") is a portion of the brain that contains a number of small, distinct nuclei with various functions and less anatomically distinct areas.
  • The hypothalamus is thus richly connected with many parts of the central nervous system, including the brainstem, reticular formation and autonomic zones, and the limbic forebrain (particularly the amygdala, septum, diagonal band of Broca, olfactory bulbs, and cerebral cortex).
  • Stimulation of this area causes increased food intake.
  • Bilateral lesion in this area causes complete cessation of food intake.
  • Some differences are apparent even in gross neuroanatomy, most notably is the sexually dimorphic nucleus within the preoptic area.

• Areas to the Left and Right of x

  • The arrow in the graph below points to the area to the left of x.
  • This area is represented by the probability P ( X < x ) .
  • The area to the right is then P ( X > x ) = 1 − P ( X < x ) .
  • Remember, P ( X < x ) = Area to the left of the vertical line through x.
  • Area to the right of the vertical line through x

• Areas Under Normal Distributions

  • Use the normal calculator to calculate an area for a given X"
  • Use the normal calculator to calculate X for a given area
  • Areas under portions of a normal distribution can be computed by using calculus.
  • The shaded area between 40 and 60 contains 68% of the distribution.
  • The shaded area contains 95% of the area and extends from 55.4 to 94.6.

• U.S. Urban Patterns

  • Census Bureau classifies areas as urban or rural based on population size and density.
  • The Census Bureau defines "urban areas" as areas with a population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile and at least 2,500 total people.
  • Urban areas are delineated without regard to political boundaries.
  • Combined, these areas occupy about 2% of the land area of the United States.
  • In the United States, the largest urban area is New York City, with over 8 million people within the city limits and over 19 million in the urban area.