1. Katie Hughes and Marley Roberts
Carl Wernicke (1874)
Katie Hughes and Marley Roberts

3. Wernicke’s Area
Function: language comprehension, Semantic processing, language recognition, language interpretation
Location: Wernicke's area is located in the left temporal lobe, posterior to the primary auditory complex.

4. Wernicke’s Study
In 1873, Wernicke received a patient who had suffered a stroke
Couldn’t make sense of spoken words
Writing was incomprehensible
The patient spoke in a perfectly normal way
This sparked his interest in studying the brain
After his patient died, he discovered that there was a lesion near the auditory region in the back of the left side of the brain

5. Discovery
When looking at the lesion, he discovered that this particular region on the brain was associated with:
Sensory and receptive activity
Speech and Reading comprehension
This explained why the patient was unable to interpret speech and writing
This area was then called Wernicke’s Area of the brain
The syndrome that the patient had was then named aphasia by Wernicke

6. Concepts Today
Nowadays, scientists believe that Wernicke’s area could also be involved with semantic( language or logic) processing
Sometimes called the receptive language area

7. Discussion Questions
When was a time that you felt that you could not interpret what someone was saying to you?
What about when you were reading?
Did anyone that you know ever had a stroke?
If so, Can you compare the symptoms of their stroke to the symptoms of the patient in the study?
Do you think Wernicke’s Area and your assigned area work together? How are they similar?