What is the role of broca area - Essay Example

Number: The Role of Broca Area Brocas area is one of the most fundamental parts of the human brain that is used in sentence processing, language production and understanding. These functions have all along remains a controversy in the study of the human brain. There are two contradicting view on the functions of Broca’s area with one holding the view that it helps in processing of sentence through verbal working memory, while the other holds that the area is involved in the processing a subcomponent of syntactic processing (Grodzinsky, pg. 13). Brocas area is found within the cerebral cortex, and its main function is the production of language and its understanding.

The region was named after a French neurosurgeon called Paul Broca who is responsible for the discovery of the role of Brocas area when he was examining the brains of patients who had difficulty in language. Anybody with damaged Brocas area of their brain will not be able to understand the language properly, but they will have difficulty in the speech formation and production. Another brain region called Wernickes area is connected to Broca’s area (Grodzinsky, pg. 7). The Wernickes area is also responsible for the understanding and processing language, and when the area is damaged, it lead to a deficiency of language but one fail to remember the details.

The role of the Broca’s area is that this part of the brain is formed by the pars opercularis and the pars triangularis located within the inferior frontal gyrus of the brain.Together with the Wernickes area, Broca’s area is located within the left hemisphere of the brain. Given its role in language production and understanding, Broca’s area has a perfect proximity to the motor cortex, therefore, the neurons from the Broca area sends signals to the larynx, to the tongue and finally to the mouth motor areas.

The mouth motor area then sends the signal to the corresponding muscles which, therefore, facilitates the creation of sounds. According to a recent study on the functions of the left frontal gyrus in the verbal fluency, it is found that the pars opercularis (Brodmann area 44) sub-serves phonological fluency while pars triangularis (Brodmann area 45) is responsible for the semantic fluency (Grodzinsky, pg. 19). Being located within the frontal lobe of the brain, Brocas Area is linked to the human language and speech.

Brocas Area is strictly associated with the production of language, it also has an important role in the understanding of language as well, and also deals with production of speech related actions and gestures. A person with damaged Brocas Area will suffer from Brocas Aphasia, which does not interfere with the way a person understands a language but will make the person have a problem in the production of language. One suffering from Brocas Aphasia will have the problem shown by stuttering, which is the incapability in the production of words and the incapability of producing sentences that are much logical.

Brocas Area is one of the most fundamental parts of the human brains when it comes to language and communication and the understanding of the language.Work citedGrodzinsky, Yosef. "The neurology of syntax: Language use without Brocas area." Behavioral and brain sciences 23.01 (2000): 1-21.