Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science pp 1–6Cite as

Broca’s and Wernicke’s Areas

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:

Synonyms

Brodmann areas 21, 22, 41 and 42; Brodmann areas 44 and 45; Heschel’s gyrus; Inferior frontal gyrus

Definition

In humans, two regions in the left cerebral hemisphere linked with the production and comprehension of speech.

Introduction

Paul Broca (1824–1880) and Karl Wernicke (1848–1905) were European physicians working in the late nineteenth century with patients with brain damage. Broca (1861a, c) described patient Leborgne (and a later, similar patient, Lelong; Broca 1861b) who was unable to produce any fluent speech, with relatively intact comprehension of what was said to him. His brain damage was largely restricted to the inferior frontal gyrus of the left hemisphere. Wernicke (1874) described a series of cases who presented with an apparently opposite pattern: poor comprehension of speech, with relatively intact abilities to produce speech sounds (although what was produced was often difficult to comprehend). These patients had lesions in more posterior regions of the...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

References

  • Bogen, J. E., & Bogen, G. M. (1976). Wernicke’s region–Where is it? Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 280(1), 834–843.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Broca, P. (1861a). Nouvelle observation d’aphe’mie produite par une le’sion de la troisie’me circonvolution frontale. Bulletins de la Socie’te´ d’anatomie (Paris), 2e serie; 6, 398–407.

    Google Scholar 

  • Broca, P. (1861b). Perte de la parole: ramollissement chronique et destruction partielle du lobe anterieur gauche du cerveau. Bulletins de la Societe d’anthropologie, 1re serie; 2, 235–238. Translation by Christopher Green here: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Broca/perte-e.htm.

  • Broca, P. (1861c). Remarques sur le sie’ge de la faculte´ du langage articule´, suivies d’une observation d’aphe’mie (perte de la parole). Bulletins de la Socie’te´ d’anatomie (Paris), 2e serie; 6, 330–357. Translation by Christopher Green here: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Broca/aphemie-e.htm; and in G von Bonin (1960). Some papers on the cerebral cortex (pp. 64–65). Springfield: Charles C. Thomas.

  • Broca, P. (1865). Sur le siege de la faculte du langage articule. Bulletins de la Societe d’anthropologie, 6, 377–393.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cantalupo, C., & Hopkins, W. D. (2001). Asymmetric Broca’s area in great apes. Nature, 414(6863), 505–505.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Cantalupo, C., Oliver, J., Smith, J., Nir, T., Taglialatela, J. P., & Hopkins, W. D. (2009). The chimpanzee brain shows human-like perisylvian asymmetries in white matter. European Journal of Neuroscience, 30(3), 431–438.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Carey, D. P., & Johnstone, L. T. (2014). Quantifying cerebral asymmetries for language in dextrals and adextrals with random-effects meta analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1128.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Corballis, M. C. (2012). Lateralization of the human brain. In M. A. Hofman & D. Falk (Eds.), Progress in brain research (Vol. 195, pp. 103–121). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeWitt, I., & Rauschecker, J. P. (2013). Wernicke’s area revisited: Parallel streams and word processing. Brain and Language, 127(2), 181–191.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Dorsaint-Pierre, R., Penhune, V. B., Watkins, K. E., Neelin, P., Lerch, J. P., Bouffard, M., & Zatorre, R. J. (2006). Asymmetries of the planum temporale and Heschl’s gyrus: Relationship to language lateralization. Brain, 129(5), 1164–1176.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dos Santos Sequeira, S., Woerner, W., Walter, C., Kreuder, F., Lueken, U., Westerhausen, R., et al. (2006). Handedness, dichotic-listening ear advantage, and gender effects on planum temporale asymmetry—A volumetric investigation using structural magnetic resonance imaging. Neuropsychologia, 44(4), 622–636.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Galaburda, A., & Sanides, F. (1980). Cytoarchitectonic organization of the human auditory cortex. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 190(3), 597–610.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gallese, V., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., & Rizzolatti, G. (1996). Action recognition in the premotor cortex. Brain, 119(2), 593–609.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gannon, P. J., Holloway, R. L., Broadfield, D. C., & Braun, A. R. (1998). Asymmetry of chimpanzee planum temporale: Humanlike pattern of Wernicke’s brain language area homolog. Science, 279(5348), 220–222.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Geschwind, N. (1970). The organization of language and the brain. Science, 170, 940–944.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Geschwind, N., & Levitsky, W. (1968). Human brain: Left-right asymmetries in temporal speech region. Science, 161, 186–187.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gil-da-Costa, R., Martin, A., Lopes, M. A., Munoz, M., Fritz, J. B., & Braun, A. R. (2006). Species-specific calls activate homologs of Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas in the Macaque. Nature Neuroscience, 9(8), 1064–1070.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Grodzinsky, Y., & Amunts, K. (Eds.). (2006). Broca’s region. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hopkins, W. D., Li, X., Crow, T., & Roberts, N. (2016). Vertex-and atlas-based comparisons in measures of cortical thickness, gyrification and white matter volume between humans and chimpanzees. Brain Structure and Function, 1–17. doi:10.1007/s00429-016-1213-1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hopkins, W. D., Marino, L., Rilling, J. K., & MacGregor, L. A. (1998). Planum temporale asymmetries in great apes as revealed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). NeuroReport, 9(12), 2913–2918.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • LeMay, M., & Geschwind, N. (1975). Hemispheric differences in the brains of great apes. Brain, Behavior and Evolution, 11(1), 48–52.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Poeppel, D., & Hickok, G. (2004). Towards a new functional anatomy of language. Cognition, 92(1), 1–12.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Preuss, T. M. (2006). Who’s afraid of Homo sapiens? Journal of Biomedical Discovery and Collaboration, 1–17. doi:10.1186/1 747-5333-1-17.

  • Sherwood, C. C., Broadfield, D. C., Holloway, R. L., Gannon, P. J., & Hof, P. R. (2003). Variability of Broca’s area homologue in African great apes: Implications for language evolution. The Anatomical Record Part A: Discoveries in Molecular, Cellular, and Evolutionary Biology, 271(2), 276–285.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Šimić, G., & Hof, P. R. (2015). In search of the definitive Brodmann’s map of cortical areas in human. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 523(1), 5–14.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Taglialatela, J. P., Russell, J. L., Schaeffer, J. A., & Hopkins, W. D. (2008). Communicative signaling activates ‘Broca’s’ homolog in chimpanzees. Current Biology, 18(5), 343–348.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Tervaniemi, M., & Hugdahl, K. (2003). Lateralization of auditory-cortex functions. Brain Research Reviews, 43(3), 231–246.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Vallortigara, G., Rogers, L. J., & Bisazza, A. (1999). Possible evolutionary origins of cognitive brain lateralization. Brain Research Reviews, 30(2), 164–175.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wernicke, C. (1874). Der aphasische Symptomenkomplex: Eine psychologische Studie auf anatomischer Basis. Breslau: Cohn und Weigert. Translated as Wernicke, C. (1908). The symptom-complex of aphasia, in Diseases of the Nervous System, ed. by A. Church. Appleton, New York, pp. 265–324.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zilles, K., & Amunts, K. (2010). Centenary of Brodmann’s map-conception and fate. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 139–145.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, UK

    David P. Carey

Authors
  1. David P. Carey
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David P. Carey .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  2. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Abertay University, Dundee, Scotland

    Christopher Watkins

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

About this entry

Cite this entry

Carey, D.P. (2016). Broca’s and Wernicke’s Areas. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3339-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3339-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation