Localisation

• The motor cortex is located in the frontal lobe . It is responsible for movement . The motor cortex is contralateral -left is controlled by right side, right is controlled by left side- . Different parts of it control different parts of the body .
• The somatosensory cortex is located in the parietal lobe . It detects sensory events from the body -touch, pressure, temperature and pain- . It is located in postcentral gyrus . More of it is dedicated in sensitive areas and is contralateral .
• The auditory cortex is located in the temporal lobe . It receives sound signals and is responsible for hearing . Vast majority of information is contralateral but some are ipsilateral . If damaged, complex process may be difficult, but not total deafness .
• Broca's area is located in the frontal lobe, left hemisphere . It is known as the 'language centre' and is critical for speech production . Broca's aphasia is a condition where the patient cannot speak due to damage to this area .
• Wernicke's area is located in the temporal lobe, left hemisphere . It is responsible for understanding speech . Wernicke's aphasia is when patients can understand what they hear/read but cannot produce their own sentences .
• There is a neural loop known as arcuate fasciculus that runs between Broca's area and Wernicke's area
• The visual cortex is located in the Occipitals lobe and is responsible for visual processing . Nerve impulses from the retina are then transmitted to brain via the optical nerve . It is split up into several areas with each processing different things . It is contralateral .
• Phineas Gage supports the idea of localisation of function as when he damaged his frontal lobe, his behaviour changed suggesting that functions are localised. However there are gender differences to localisation as women have bigger Wernick and Broca's areas .
• Lashley proposed the equipotentiality theory, which criticises the theory of localisation as is suggests that certain functions run holistically - the idea that human behaviour should be viewed as a whole integrated experience, and not as separate parts.-