Alternative Content 15.1: Speech and Language Areas

This controls the muscles of the larynx and related structures necessary to produce speech.

This structure associates the visual form of the word with the corresponding auditory pattern in Wernicke's area. Patients with lesions in this region have difficulty reading aloud, but they are able to speak and understand speech.

This is located in the parietal cortex. Injury to the supramarginal gyrus interferes with repetition of heard speech.

Here, sounds are analyzed to decode their meaning. From this area, the auditory form is transmitted via the arcuate fasciculus to Broca's area.

Information about the sound of a word is analyzed by this structure and transmitted to Wernicke's area.

This is an area in the frontal region of the left hemisphere that is involved in the production of speech. Lesions to this region can result in a type of aphasia characterized by difficulty producing speech, talking only in a labored and hesitant manner.