Complex brain landscape controls speech
Broca's region is classically regarded as the motor centre for speech. Our ability to form phonemes and words is controlled here. According to the maps of the cerebral cortex developed by Korbinian Brodmann, which are still in use today, Broca's region is composed of two areas. Over the last few years, however, researchers have begun to question this subdivision as a result of experience gained in clinical studies and the findings of magnetic resonance imaging analyses. 'Lesions in Broca's region could result in a dozen different language problems,' says Professor Katrin Amunts, brain researcher at Forschungszentrum Juelich and first author of the study. 'For example, in articulation but also in comprehension or in grammar, as linguistic studies have shown. This tends to suggest a much more complexly structured centre of language than was previously believed.'...