Broca’s Area is the Brain’s Scriptwriter

For 150 years, scientists have known that a brain region called Broca’s area plays a key role in speech production, but its exact functions have been a mystery. However, a study recently conducted at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine using recordings from the surface of the brain revealed that Broca’s area is active early in the process of forming sentences and ends its work before a word is actually spoken — which is sooner than previously believed. This new insight about Broca’s area, which is located in the frontal cortex above and behind the left eye, could ultimately benefit the treatment of language impairments due to stroke, epilepsy and brain injuries, according to the senior author of the study, and an associate professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University. “We were interested in studying how information flows through the brain during speech,” the author said. “…and in this study, for the first time, we were able to record very precisely the timing of activation of different centers of the brain during different language tasks. Broca’s area has always been viewed as very important for the articulation of speech, but until now its precise role was unclear.” Results of the study showed that rather than carrying out the articulation of speech, Broca’s area develops a plan for articulation, and then monitors what is said to correct errors and make adjustments in the flow of speech. To read more about this study, click here.