Le afasie di Broca e di Wernicke alla luce delle moderne neuroscienze cognitive

Abstract

This paper analyzes two acquired language disorders: Broca’s aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia. It has been commonly suggested that these disorders respectively affect functions related to speech production and language comprehension and they have been understood to result from two specific types of brain lesions: Broca’s aphasia from lesions in the third left frontal convolution; Wernicke’s aphasia from lesions in the posterior section of the left superior temporal gyrus. For this reason, these cerebral regions, also known as Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, have long been viewed as the neuroanatomical correlates of language production and comprehension. This paper shows that in light of current research: (a) with regard to language disorders, it is no longer possible to conceive of Broca’s and Wernicke's aphasias as unitary disorders; (b) with regard to the cerebral localization of linguistic functions, it no longer possible to suggest that Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas are the only regions involved in speech production and comprehension.

Keywords

• broca's aphasia
• wernicke's aphasia
• broca's area
• wernicke's area
• language impairments
• cerebral localization
• neuroscience