Paul Broca

From Psy3242

Paul Broca's patient was Monsieur LeBorgne. Tan. Tan was only able to say the word "Tan." He is also responsible for the study of Aphasia known as Broca's aphasia. In a patient with Broca's aphasia, words like "in" "and" "but" "above" "about" and "so on" are often omitted. There is also telegraphic speech. There is difficulties in language production (especially of novel utterances). May be able to use well practiced expressions without obvious difficulty and may be able to sing well known songs. Broca's area is located in the left frontal lobe just forward from the primary motor cortex on the posterior surface of the 3rd frontal gyrus, encompassing Brodman's 44 and part of area 6. Non-fluent speech but articulation is good. Speech is often slow, deliberte and effortful and may have only a very simple grammatical structure. When PET is used to examine resting brain function, patients with Broca's aphasia show underactivation in left frontal regions.

Paul Broca discovered that speech was impaired following damage to the posterior portion of the third convolution of the left frontal lobe(often called Broca's area). Broca's aphasia is known as expressive, nonfluent, or motor aphasia. The degree of speech loss highly correlates to the degree of oral apraxia. Apraxia refers to a difficulty miming or performing learned motor skills on command. Patients severely affected with oral apraxia may be unable to poke their tongue out or whistle on verbal command or in imitation of the examinar. Tan was found at postmortem to have a lesion of the third frontal gyrus. The right hand is often paralyzed because the lesion that causes Broca's aphasia may also encroach on the motor strip for the hand. The major feature of Broca's aphasia is severe nonfluency of speech, which may be extreme to render the patient mute. Speech is often limited to a few stereotyped expressions and expletives. Often the comprehension of numbers and symbols is also impaired. Their non-verbal memory is good; they have no difficulty recognizing doctors and other caregivers and they can follow a simple schedule. They are also emotionally fragile and easily angered or brought to tears.