Language and Speech 2024

Language and Speech
• It is the understanding of the spoken and printed word and expressing ideas in
speech and writing.
• Unlike memory and learning which are functions of large parts of the brain,
mechanisms related to language, are more or less localized to the neocortex.
• Human language functions depend more on one cerebral hemisphere than on
the other.
• This hemisphere is concerned with categorization and symbolization and has
often been called the dominant hemisphere/ the categorical hemisphere
Concerned with language functions
The nondominant/ the representational hemisphere is specialized in the area of
spatiotemporal relations which includes
The identification of objects by their form and the recognition of musical themes.
Plays a primary role in the recognition of faces.
• Hemispheric specialization, in turn is related to handedness. Handedness
appears to be genetically determined.
In 96% of right-handed individuals, who constitute 91% of the human
population, the left hemisphere is the dominant or categorical hemisphere,
in the remaining 4%, the right hemisphere is dominant.
In approximately 15% of left -handed individuals, the right hemisphere is the
categorical hemisphere and in 15%, there is no clear lateralization.
However, in the remaining 70% of left -handers, the left hemisphere is the
categorical hemisphere.
• Learning disabilities such as
dyslexia, are 12 times as
common in left -handers as they
are in right-handers.
• However, the spatial talents of
left -handers may be well above
average; a disproportionately
large number of artists,
musicians, and mathematicians
are left -handed.
Some anatomic differences between the two hemispheres may correlate with the
functional differences
Planum temporale , an area of the superior temporal gyrus that is involved in
language-related auditory processing, is regularly larger on the left side than the
right
Imaging studies show that upper surface of the left temporal lobe are larger in
right-handed individuals, the right frontal lobe is normally thicker than the left ,
and the left occipital lobe is wider and protrudes across the midline.
Chemical differences - the concentration of dopamine is higher in the
nigrostriatal pathway on the left side in right-handed humans but higher on the
right in left -handers.
The physiologic significance of these differences is unknown.
Physiology of language
The primary brain areas concerned with language are
arrayed along and near the sylvian fissure of the
• Wernicke’s area :
A region at the posterior end of the superior
temporal gyrus
Concerned with comprehension of auditory and
visual information. It projects via the arcuate
fasciculus to Broca’s area in the frontal lobe
• Broca’s area processes the information received
from Wernicke’s area into a detailed and coordinated
pattern for vocalization
• Projects the pattern via a speech articulation area in
the insula to the motor cortex,
• MC initiates the appropriate movements of the lips,
tongue, and larynx to produce speech.
• In individuals who learn a second language in adulthood, MRI reveals that the
portion of Broca’s area concerned with it is adjacent to but separate from the
area concerned with the native language.
• However, in children who learn two languages early in life, only a single area is
involved with both.
Lesions in the categorical hemisphere produce language disorders- Aphasias.
• Not due to defects of vision or hearing or to motor paralysis.
• The most common cause is embolism or thrombosis of a cerebral blood vessel.
• Types:
Nonfluent
Fluent
Anomic
1. Non- Fluent aphasia
Lesion is in Broca’s area.
 Speech is slow, and words are hard to come by.
Patients with severe damage to this area are limited to two or three words with
which to express the whole range of meaning and emotion.
 Sometimes the words retained are those that were being spoken at the time of
the injury or vascular accident that caused the aphasia.
2. Fluent aphasia
a. If the lesion is in Wernicke’s area
Speech itself is normal and sometimes the patients talk excessively.
However, what they say is full of jargon and neologisms that make little sense.
 The patient also fails to comprehend the meaning of spoken or written words, so
other aspects of the use of language are compromised.
b. If lesions near the auditory cortex:

Patients can speak relatively well and have good auditory comprehension but
cannot put parts of words together or conjure up words- conduction aphasia
3. Anomic aphasia
Lesion damages the angular gyrus in the categorical
hemisphere without affecting Wernicke’s or Broca’s areas
There is no difficulty with speech or the understanding of
auditory information; instead there is trouble
understanding written language or pictures, because
visual information is not processed and transmitted to
Wernicke’s area.
• Although aphasias are produced by lesions of the categorical hemisphere, lesions
in the representational hemisphere also have effects.
• For example, they may impair the ability to tell a story or make a joke, get the
point of a joke.
• Patients with lesions in the categorical hemisphere are disturbed about their
disability and often depressed
• More than one form of aphasia is often present.
• Frequently, the aphasia is general (global) , involving both receptive and
expressive functions.
• In this situation, speech is scant as well as nonfluent.
• Writing is abnormal in all aphasias in which speech is abnormal, but the neural
circuits involved are unknown.
• Deaf subjects who develop a lesion in the categorical hemisphere lose their
ability to communicate in sign language.
• Stuttering
Found to be associated with right cerebral dominance and widespread
overactivity in the cerebral cortex and cerebellum, including increased activity of
the supplementary motor area.
Stimulation of part of this area has been reported to produce laughter , with the
duration and intensity of the laughter proportional to the intensity of the
stimulus.
Lesions in the representational hemisphere produce astereognosis and
agnosias.
• Inability to recognize objects by a particular sensory modality even though the
sensory modality itself is intact.
• Lesions producing these defects are generally in the parietal lobe.
• Individuals with such lesions do not have any apparent primary visual, auditory,
or somatesthetic defects, but they ignore stimuli from the contralateral portion of
their bodies or the space around these portions.
• Leads to failure to care for half their bodies - shave half their faces, dress half
their bodies, or read half of each page.
• This inability to put together a picture of visual space on one side is due to a shift
in visual attention to the side of the brain lesion
• Patients with lesions in the representational hemisphere are sometimes
unconcerned and even euphoric.
Dyslexia
• Broad term applied to impaired ability to read, difficulties with learning how to
decode at the word level, to spell, and to read accurately and fluently despite
having a normal or even higher than normal level of intelligence.
• Frequently an inherited abnormality that affects 5% of the population with a
similar incidence in boys and girls.
• Many individuals with dyslexic symptoms also have problems with short-term
memory skills and problems processing spoken language.
• Although its precise cause is unknown, dyslexia is of neurological origin.
• Acquired dyslexia often occur due to brain damage in the left hemisphere’s key
language areas.
• Also, in many cases, there is a decreased blood flow in the angular gyrus in the
• Treatments for children with dyslexia frequently rely on modified teaching
strategies that include the involvement of various senses (hearing, vision, and
touch) to improve reading skills.
• The sooner the diagnosis is made and interventions are applied, the better the
prognosis.
Recognition of faces
• An important part of the visual input goes to the
inferior temporal lobe, where representations of
objects, particularly faces, are stored
• Important in distinguishing friends from foes and
the emotional state of those seen.
• In humans, storage and recognition of faces is
more strongly represented in the right inferior
temporal lobe in right-handed individuals, though
the left lobe is also active.
• Damage to this area can cause prosopagnosia , the
inability to recognize faces.
• They can recognize people by their voices, and
many of them show autonomic responses when
they see familiar as opposed to unfamiliar faces.
However, they cannot identify the familiar faces
they see.
• Analysis of the brain regions involved in arithmetic calculations: the inferior
portion of the left frontal lobe
• Frontal lobe lesions can cause acalculia , a selective impairment of mathematical
ability.
• Accurate navigation
Includes two structures: right hippocampus, which is concerned with learning
where places are located, and right caudate nucleus, which facilitates movement
to the places.
 Men have larger brains than women and are said to have superior spatial skills
and ability to navigate.

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Language and Speech

b. If lesions near the auditory cortex:

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