Physiology of Language

Dr Raghuveer Choudhary Asstt. Prof.

Department of Physiology
Dr S.N.Medical College
Jodhpur
 Physiology of Language

Language is one of the fundamental

bases of human intelligence and a
key part of human culture.
 Anatomy of language areas

The primary brain areas concerned with language

are arrayed along and near the sylvian fissure
(lateral cerebral sulcus) of the categorical
hemisphere.
 A region at the posterior end of the superior
temporal gyrus called Wernicke’s area is
concerned with comprehension of auditory and
visual information.
It projects via the arcuate fasciculus to Broca’s
area (area 44) in the frontal lobe.
Broca’s area processes the information received from
Wernicke’s area into a detailed and coordinated pattern for
vocalization
 and then projects the pattern via a speech articulation area
in the insula to the motor cortex, which initiates the
appropriate movements of the lips, tongue, and larynx to
produce speech.
The angular gyrus behind Wernicke’s area appears to
process information from words that are read in such a way
that they can be converted into the auditory forms of the
words in Wernicke’s area.
Location of language areas
 Wernick’s Area
 Broca’a Area
 Speech articulation Area in
Insula(Exners Area)
 Motor Cortex
 Angular Gyrus(Dejerine Area)
 Lesion (injury) studies:
 Show that a brain area is necessary for a given task
 Without Broca’s area, you can’t produce speech
 Without Wernicke’s area, you can’t understand speech

• Speech production and perception are centered in different

areas, suggesting that different processes may underlie them
• But Broca’s and Wernicke’s are connected to each other
• Wernicke’s speech perception area is close to, but not inside
of, primary auditory cortex
• Speech perception is not just auditory processing
 Some brain areas are specialised for language
 Broca’s area: speech production
 Wernicke’s area: speech perception
 On the left side of the brain (in 95% of people)

 What does “specialised for language” actually mean?

 If you lose these areas, you lose language
 When you use language, you use those areas
 BUT: That does not mean that they only do language
 E.g. Broca’s area may be involved in music perception
The probable
sequence
of events
when a subject
names
a visual object
(horizontal
section of hum-
an brain)
It is interesting that in individuals who
learn a second language in adulthood,
fMRI reveals that the portion of Broca’s
area concerned with it is adjacent to but
separate from the area concerned with the
native language.
 However, in children who learn two
languages early in life, there is only a single
area involved with both.
 Aphasias are abnormalities of language
functions that are not due to defects of vision
or hearing or to motor paralysis. They are
caused by lesions in the categorical
hemisphere.
 The most common cause is embolism or
thrombosis of a cerebral blood vessel.

 Fluent, nonfluent, and anomic aphasias.

 In nonfluent aphasia (EXPRESSIVE APHASIA,
ANTERIOR APHASIA)
the lesion is in Broca’s area
 Speech is slow, and words are hard to come by.
Patients with severe damage to this area are
limited to two or three words with which to express
the whole range of meaning and emotion.
The words retained are those which were being
spoken at the time of the injury or vascular
accident that caused the aphasia.
 In 1861, Broca examined a
patient nicknamed “Tan,”
after the syllable he said
most often.
 The area of damage in
Tan’s case is now known
as “Broca’s area.”
 Paul Broca (1861): patient "Tan”
• Severe deficit in speech production: could only say “tan”
• Good language comprehension

 Tan’s brain: lesion (injury) in left frontal cortex

 Broca’s area contains memories of the sequences of muscular
movements that are needed to articulate words
 Often become frustrated by their inability to speak correctly;
however, comprehension is not perfect
 Difficulty in comprehending meaning from word order (“The
horse kicks the cow” vs. “The cow kicks the horse”)
 3 major speech deficits with Broca’s aphasia:
 Agrammatism – difficulty in comprehending or properly
employing grammatical devices, such as verb endings and
word order
 Anomia – difficulty in finding (remembering) the appropriate
word to describe an object, action, or attribute
 Difficulty with articulation – mispronounce words, often
realizing it afterwards, and trying to correct it
 Damage to different areas in and around Broca’s area leads to
different symptoms of aphasia
 Left insular cortex – controls speech articulation (damage can
cause apraxia of speech: impairment in the ability to program
movements of the tongue, lips, and throat required to produce
the proper sequence of speech sounds
Fluent Aphasia ( RECEPTIVE APHASIA,
POSTERIOR APHASIA)
Lesion in the wernicke’s area
Speech itself is normal and sometimes the
patients talk excessively.
 However, what they say is full of jargon and
neologisms that make little sense.
The patient also fails to comprehend the
meaning of spoken or written words.
 Must not just recognize words, we must understand their meaning
 Wernicke’s area contains neural circuits that accomplish
this task
 Wernicke’s aphasia – a form of aphasia characterized by
poor speech comprehension and fluent but meaningless
speech
 Comprehension tested by directing movement toward objects
asked about by experimenter is also poor (e.g. “Point to the ink
bottle” – patient cannot point to ink bottle)
 However, patients seem unaware of their deficit, unlike with
Broca’s aphasia
 They do not recognize that their speech is faulty, nor that they
do not comprehend other speech
 Wernicke suggested that this area is a location where memories
of the sequences of sounds that constitute words are stored
 Damage to Broca’s  Damage to Wernicke’s
area. area.
 Speech is not fluent.  Speech is fluent, but
 Comprehension is meaningless.
affected, but good.  Comprehension is
 Repetition is very very poor.
poor.  Sound substitutions
are common.
 Repetition is poor.
conduction aphasia
Lesion in the auditory cortex (areas 40, 41
&42)
patients can speak relatively well and have
good auditory comprehension but cannot put
parts of words together or conjure up words.
This is called conduction aphasia because it
was thought to be due to lesions of the
arcuate fasciculus connecting Wernicke’s and
Broca’s areas.
 Damage to arcuate
fasciculus.
 Speech production
is good.
 Comprehension is
good.
 Sound substitutions
are common.
 Repetition is poor.
Anomic Aphasia
When there is a lesion damaging the
angular gyrus.
There is trouble understanding written
language or pictures, because visual
information is not processed and
transmitted to Wernicke’s area.
 Aphasias. Characteristic responses of
patients with lesions in various areas when
shown a picture of a chair

Type of Aphasia and Characteristic Naming

Site of Lesion Errors

Nonfluent (Broca’s area) “Tssair”

Fluent (Wernicke’s area)
Fluent (areas 40, 41 and 42;
conduction aphasia)
Anomic (angular gyrus)
“Stool” or “choss”
(neologism)invented word
“Flair . . . no, swair . . .
tair”
“I know what it is . . .
I have a lot of them”
 AREA LESION FAETURES

auditory association word deafness

areas

visual association word blindness called dyslexia

areas

Wernicke's Aphasia unable to interpret the thought

Global Aphasia Sensory Aphasia

Broca's Area Causes Motor Aphasia

Dyslexia
which is a broad term applied to impaired ability
to read, due to an inherited abnormality.

Causes of Dyslexia:
1. Reduced ability to recall speech sounds, so
there is trouble translating them mentally into
sound units (phonemes).
2. There is a defect in the magnocellular portion
of the visual system that slows processing
and also leads to phonemic deficit.
3. There is decreased blood flow in angular
gyrus in categorical hemisphere in both
cases.
 Reader with dyslexia shows less activation of Wernicke’s area and the
angular gyrus and more activation of Broca’s area.
 GLOBAL APHASIA
(CENTRAL APHASIA)

This means the combination of the expressive

problems of Broca's aphasia and the loss of
comprehension of Wernicke's.
The patient can neither speak nor understand
language.
 It is due to widespread damage to speech areas
and is the commonest aphasia after a severe left
hemisphere infarct.
Writing and reading are also affected.
 Damage to Broca’s area, Wernicke’s area and
the arcuate fasciculus.
 Abilities to speak, comprehend and repeat are
impaired.
 APHASIA
EXPRESSIVE RECEPTIVE

NON FLUENT BROCA'S AREA

• WERNICK’S AREA
FLUENT CONDUCTION
APHASIA

ANOMIC ANGULAR GYRUS

GLOBAL WIDESPREAD DAMAGE

TO SPEECH AREAS
Lesions limited to the left temporal pole
(area 38) cause inability to retrieve names
of places and persons but preserves the
ability to retrieve common nouns.
Stuttering, associated with right cerebral
dominance and widespread overactivity
in the cerebral cortex, cerebellum and
supplementary motor area.
An important part of the visual input goes to the
inferior temporal lobe, where representations of
objects, particularly faces, are stored.
In humans, storage and recognition of faces is
more strongly represented in the right inferior
temporal lobe in right-handed individuals,
though the left lobe is also active.
 Lesions in this area cause prosopagnosia, the
inability to recognize faces.
 They can recognize people by their voices, and
many of them show autonomic responses when
they see familiar as opposed to unfamiliar faces.
However, they cannot identify the familiar faces
they see.
 Acoustic Phonetics: Anatomy

nasal tract
(hard) palate
velic port
oral tract alveolar ridge

velum (soft palate) lips

tongue
teeth
pharynx
glottis tongue tip
(vocal folds and
space between vocal cords)

vocal folds (larynx)

= vocal cords

The Speech Production Apparatus (from Olive, p. 23)

 Acoustic Phonetics: Anatomy

Types of phonation (from Daniloff, p. 194)

quiet forced
breathing inhalation

normal
phonation whisper
 DYSARTHRIA
DISORDERED ARTICULATION
Slurred speech.
Language is intact
Paralysis, slowing or incoordination of muscles of
articulation or local discomfort causes various different
patterns of dysarthria.
Examples
•'gravelly' speech of upper motor neurone lesions of
lower cranial nerves,
• jerky, ataxic speech of cerebellar lesions (Scanning
Speech),
•the monotone of Parkinson's disease (Slurred),
•speech in myasthenia that fatigues and dies away. Many
aphasic patients are also somewhat dysarthric.
In the inferior portion of the left frontal
lobe there is an area concerned with
number facts and exact calculations.
 Frontal lobe lesions can cause
acalculia, a selective impairment of
mathematical ability.
Accurate navigation in human
1.One is the right hippocampus, which is
concerned with learning where places are
located,
2.and the other is the right caudate
nucleus, which facilitates movement to
the places.
 Patients with alexia are unable to read or to
point to words and letters on command.
 Patients may write, but are unable to read what
was written.
 Ability to recognize words spelled out loud is
retained.
 Most cases result from damage to the left
occipital cortex and the corpus callosum.
 Some researchers believe that sign language preceded
spoken language with our ancestors
 Broca’s area is activated when people observe and
imitate finger movements
 The grammar of ASL (American Sign Language) is
spatial, and thus cannot be translated word for word to
a spoken language
 Aphasic disorders in deaf people may be caused by
lesions to the R hemisphere, which is primarily
involved in spatial perception and memory; However,
all studies of deaf patients with aphasia for signs
reported lesions of the L hemisphere
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