New language center found in the brain

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New language center found in the brain

2004 December 14

LONDON, Dec 14, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX) --

British scientists have found a third area of the brain critical to

learning language that connects the two main cerebral centers of

language in the cortex.

The region is in the parietal lobe of the cortex. Using brain scans,

scientists discovered it was connected in a round-about way to

language centers called Broca's area and Wernicke's area, named for

discoverers Broca and Carl Wernicke. This third

area, " Geschwind's territory, " is named in honor of American

neurologist Norman Geschwind, who pointed out the importance of the

region in the 1960s.

" There are clues that the parallel pathway network we found is

important for the acquisition of language in childhood, " said lead

author Dr. Marco Catani of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's

College London. " Geschwind's territory is the last area in the brain

to mature, the completion of its maturation coinciding with the

development of reading and writing skills. An important future line

of study will be to examine the maturation of this area and its

connections in the context of autism and dyslexia. "

The study appears in the online edition of ls of Neurology.

Copyright: Copyright 2004 by United Press International.