Northwestern University Scientists Redraw Language Map of Brain to Restore Language

Knowing where language comprehension is located offers a more precise target for future therapies that could potentially protect or restore language function.

A language map of brain that will help develop better therapies to restore language has been redrawn, says new research. A team of scientists from Northwestern University have redrawn the map.

They have updated the traditional brain map of language comprehension based on new research with individuals who have a rare form of dementia that affects language.

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The new work shows that word comprehension is actually located in a different brain neighborhood -- the left anterior temporal lobe.

"Also, sentence comprehension turns out to be distributed widely throughout the language network, not in a single area as previously thought," the team said.

"This provides an important change in our understanding of language comprehension in the brain," said lead study author Marek-Marsel Mesulam, director of Northwestern's cognitive neurology and Alzheimer's disease centre.

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For 140 years, scientists' understanding of language comprehension in the brain came from individuals with stroke.

Based on language impairments caused by stroke, scientists believed a single area of the brain -- a hot dog shaped section in the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere called Wernicke's region -- was the centre of language comprehension.

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Wernicke's was thought to be responsible for understanding the meaning of single words and sentences, two separate and critical functions.

Knowing where language comprehension is located offers a more precise target for future therapies that could potentially protect or restore language function.

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The paper is forthcoming in the journal Brain.

Source-IANS