An area in the posterior temporal lobe of the left hemisphere of the brain involved in the recognition of spoken words.
[After Karl Wernicke (1848-1905), German neurologist.]
Wernicke's area
Dictionary:
Wer·nick·e's area (vĕr'nĭ-kēz, -kəz)  |
n.
An area in the posterior temporal lobe of the left hemisphere of the brain involved in the recognition of spoken words.
An area in the posterior temporal lobe of the left hemisphere of the brain involved in the recognition of spoken words.
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The noun has one meaning:
Meaning #1:
the auditory word center; located in the posterior part of the superior temporal convolution in most people
Synonym: Wernicke's center
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| Brain: Wernicke's area | ||
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| Approximate location of Wernicke's area highlighted in grey | ||
| NeuroNames | ancil-252 | |
Wernicke's area is one of the two parts of the cerebral cortex linked since the late nineteenth century to speech (the other is the Broca's area). It is traditionally considered to consist of the posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus in the dominant cerebral hemisphere (which is the left hemisphere in about 90% of people).
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Location
The Wernicke's area is classically located as the posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus (STG) in the left (or dominant) cerebral hemisphere. This area encircles the auditory cortex on the Sylvian fissure (part of the brain where the temporal lobe and parietal lobe meet). This area is neuroanatomically described as the posterior part of Brodmann area 22.
However, there is an absence of consistent definitions as to its location.[1] Some identify it with the unimodal auditory association in the superior temporal gyrus anterior to the primary auditory cortex.[2] Others include also adjacent parts of the heteromodal cortex in BA 39 and BA40 in the parietal lobe.[3]
While previously thought to connect Wernicke's area and Broca's area, new research demonstrates that the AF instead connects to posterior receptive areas with premotor/motor areas, and not to Broca's area.[4]
Wernicke and aphasia
Wernicke's area is named after Carl Wernicke, a German neurologist and psychiatrist who, in 1874, hypothesized a link between the left posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus and the reflexive mimicking of words and their syllables that associated the sensory and motor images of spoken words.[5]
He did this on the basis of the location of brain injuries that caused aphasia. Receptive aphasia in which such abilities are preserved is now sometimes called Wernicke's aphasia. In this condition there is a major impairment of language comprehension, while speech retains a natural-sounding rhythm and a relatively normal syntax. Language as a result is largely meaningless (a condition sometimes called fluent or jargon aphasia). However, it is now known that "Wernicke's aphasia" is not caused by damage to the Wernicke's area.[6][1]
Right homologous area
Research using Transcranial magnetic stimulation suggests that the area corresponding to the Wernicke’s area in the non-dominant cerebral hemisphere has a role in processing and resolution of subordinate meanings of ambiguous words -- such as (‘‘river’’) when given the ambiguous word (‘‘bank’’). In contrast, the Wernicke's area in the dominant hemisphere processes dominant word meanings (‘‘teller’’ given ‘‘bank’’).[7]
Modern views
Neuroimaging suggests the functions earlier attributed to the Wernicke's area occur more broadly in the temporal lobe and indeed happen also in the Broca's area.
| “ | There are some suggestions that middle and inferior temporal gyri and basal temporal cortex reflect lexical processing ... there is consensus that the STG from rostral to caudal fields and the STS constitute the neural tissue in which many of the critical computations for speech recognition are executed ... aspects of Broca’s area (Brodmann areas 44 and 45) are also regularly implicated in speech processing.
... the range of areas implicated in speech processing go well beyond the classical language areas typically mentioned for speech; the vast majority of textbooks still state that this aspect of perception and language processing occurs in Wernicke’s area (the posterior third of the STG).[8] |
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Footnotes
- ^ a b Bogen JE, Bogen GM. (1976). Wernicke's region--Where is it? Ann N Y Acad Sci. 280:834-43.PubMed
- ^ Démonet JF, Chollet F, Ramsay S, Cardebat D, Nespoulous JL, Wise R, Rascol A, Frackowiak R. (1992). The anatomy of phonological and semantic processing in normal subjects. Brain. 1151753-68.PubMed
- ^ Mesulam MM. (1998). From sensation to cognition. Brain. 121:1013-52. PubMed
- ^ Bernal B, Ardila A. (2009). The role of the arcuate fasciculus in conduction aphasia. Brain. 132(Pt 9):2309-16. PMID 19690094 doi:10.1093/brain/awp206
- ^ Wernicke K. (1874/1994). The aphasia symptom-complex. Breslau, Cohn and Weigert. Translated in: Eling P, editor. Reader in the history of aphasia. Vol. 4. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; p. 69–89.
- ^ Dronkers NF. Redfern B B. Knight R T. (2000). The neural architecture of language disorders. In MS. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The new cognitive neurosciences (pp. 949–958). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- ^ Harpaz Y, Levkovitz Y, Lavidor M. (2009). Lexical ambiguity resolution in Wernicke's area and its right homologue. Cortex. 45(9):1097-103. PMID 19251255 doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2009.01.002
- ^ Poeppel D, Idsardi WJ, van Wassenhove V. (2008). Speech perception at the interface of neurobiology and linguistics. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 363(1493):1071-86. PubMed
See also
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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