Localisation of the Brain

• 'Localisation of function' is the theory that specific and different areas of the brain are responsible for various behaviours, processes or activities.
• What is the role of the frontal lobe?

  The frontal love is involved in attention and thought, voluntary movement, decision making, emotional response, impulse control and language.
• Broca's area is only located in the left hemisphere of the brain and specifically in the frontal lobe. It is responsible for speech production.
• What is the role of the motor cortex?

  This is the primary motor area, it controls voluntary movement in the opposite side of the body.
• What is the role of the somatosensory cortex?

  This is where all sensory information from the skin is processed.
• What is the role of the occipital lobe?

  This is the visual area, it’s responsible for vision, integrating and processing visual information (shape, colour, distance).
• What is the role of the temporal lobe?

  This is the auditory area, it analyses speech based information.
• Wernicke's area is located in the left hemisphere of the brain and specifically in the temporal lobe. It is responsible for language comprehension.
• Through the use of post-mortems two 'language areas' were identified: Broca's area and Wernicke's area.
• If you experience damage to either Broca's or Wernicke's area this results in the condition called aphasia. Aphasia is a disorder that affects how you communicate; effecting speech, how you write and understand spoken/written language.
• What are the three main speech production problems in Broca's aphasia?

  • Anomia - a difficulty finding the right words.
  • Agrammatism - problems with grammar.
  • Articulation problems - mispronouncing words.
• What are the three main speech production problems in Wernicke's aphasia?

  • Pure word deafness - spoken words are difficult to recognise (fluent speech but it makes no sense)
  • Word comprehension - the semantics of words is severely impaired.
  • Thought expression - meaningful speech relating to the persons thoughts is compromised.