“Journeys to the brain” explores the brain. This project aims to broaden the readers’ knowledge about the human brain.

The journeys that have ventured to date:

• Brain covers:1
• Brain surface:2
• Two little humans:3
• Brain’s blood flow:4
• Types of strokes;5
• Brain’s collaterals:6
• “Time is brain”:7
• Neuron forest:8
• Neurons:9
• Broca’s speech area:10
• Broca’s aphasia:11
• Wernicke’s aphasia:12
• Fighting the stroke:13

Broca’s area plays a very important role in our speech.

Prior to 1861, scientists debated whether the whole brain acted either as a single entity or it contains specific regions assigned to specific tasks. Pierre Paul Broca ended this debate in 1861.

“Monsieur Tan”

One day, prior to 1861, Pierre Paul Broca examined an adult male – named Leborgne – who came with a right-sided paralysis.

Pierre Paul Broca was a surgeon who had a special interest in physical anthropology. He had been studying the association between skull shapes and sizes with evolution.

In addition to the Leborgne’s – Broca’s patient – right-sided paralysis, he was suffering from another problem: He produced only one sound with one syllable – “tan”, twice in succession, albeit fine with understanding. Since then, the hospital staff identified him as “Monsieur tan”. Paul suspected Leborgne’s problem was due to some sort of damage to the brain’s left side although there was no way to confirm it at that time. After his death, Paul dissected his brain and discovered a damaged region in Leborgne’s brain’s lower part of the left Frontal lobe.

Broca found a similar lesion at the same place in his second patient’s brain too – “Lelong” who had a history of stroke and spoke only five words.

In 1861, Paul Broca presented his findings – “our brain owns a specific area in charge of speech production” – to the world.

Three years later, Broca described 25 similar cases; all but one had a damaged area at the same place in the brain: lower part of the left Frontal lobe – just above the left eye’s orbit.

With that, he ended the great debate at that time: “the brain owns specialized areas for specific functions”.

However, now, we know that this is not 100% accurate.

Broca’s area

Since then, the medical community has continued to name this area in the left hemisphere as the “Broca’s area” to recognize his exemplary work. And, the inability to produce speech as a result of damage to this area is named as “Broca’s Aphasia”.

Brodmann 44 and 45

Much later, in 1909, another expert – Brodmann – identified two parts of Broca’s area; these parts were named Brodmann 44 and 45 which are depicted in the following sketch.

The most recent research has shown that the Brodmann 45 is more active in meaningful language processing together with the area 44. Moreover, it also has shown that its surrounding areas become active in more general domain-specific cognitive functions.

The Broca’s area rests on the lower part of the left Frontal lobe. I invite you to re-visit the Journeys to the brain: 2 – A walk over the brain surface which introduces different lobes of the brain. For easy reference, I have included a graphic that appeared in my earlier journey to the brain:2.

However, most recently, researchers, using sophisticated MRI technology, showed that Leborgne’s brain damage had gone beyond what we now have typically known as Broca’s area. This fact raised to doubt the exact role of Broca’s area in speech production.

Using the latest technological advancement, researchers have shown that Broca’s area mediates the interaction between the Temporal lobe which helps us to process listening and the motor area of the Frontal lobe, the area sends signals to speak.