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Broca vs. Wernicke's Aphasia a Double Dissociation

“Explain the concept of a double-dissociation using the contrast between Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia”

An important concept in neuropsychology is the notion of double-dissociation. The purpose of this essay is to discuss this topic in relation to language disorders, specifically Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia. The hypothesis of double-dissociation within language suggests that the two language aphasias are separable and can occur independently of each other. This hypothesis will be addressed with both archival and more recent journal articles and experimental evidence.

Aphasia is defined as a loss or impairment of language function caused by damaged to language and association areas of the brain. There are a number of possible causes including a stroke, tumor, head trauma, toxic conditions, and degenerative disease such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The two syndromes relevant to this essay are Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia.
In France in 1871 Paul Broca’s first patient was a man known as ‘Tan’ because that was the only syllable he was able to utter. Broca found that the patient appeared to have normal language comprehension and could indeed use hand gestures to communicate. Since the patient didn’t show serious cognitive impairment it suggested that damage to a specific brain region could be causing these problems. At autopsy Broca discovered there to be a large lesion in an area of the left frontal lobe, this area is now known “Broca’s area”.
Subsequent studies of Broca appeared to show that the center for speech production is localised in Broca’s area in the left prefrontal cortex. The language deficit caused by damage to Broca’s area is now called Broca’s aphasia. Broca’s aphasic’s speech is slow, laboured, halting, and lacking many function words. Speech is “telegraphic” although comprehension is generally good. The fragmented results produced with great effort give rise to the other names for Broca’s aphasia, such as “non-fluent aphasia” or ‘expressive aphasia’. We also know that Broca’s area is responsible for structure, planning and organization of speech, it is located next to the articulation centers on the motor cortex. Broca’s area is responsible for the phonemic representations used for speech production. Since in Broca’s aphasic’s comprehension is good and production is poor then these processes must be considered separable.
Subsequent to Broca’s localisation of language production, Karl Wernicke was able to determine the area of the brain responsible for language comprehension (1874). He found that many patients...

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