Asymmetric Broca's area in great apes
Abstract
Brodmann's area 44 delineates part of Broca's area within the inferior frontal gyrus of the human brain and is a critical region for speech production1,2, being larger in the left hemisphere than in the right1,2,3,4 — an asymmetry that has been correlated with language dominance2,3. Here we show that there is a similar asymmetry in this area, also with left-hemisphere dominance, in three great ape species (Pan troglodytes, Pan paniscus and Gorilla gorilla). Our findings suggest that the neuroanatomical substrates for left-hemisphere dominance in speech production were evident at least five million years ago and are not unique to hominid evolution.
- Publication:
-
Nature
- Pub Date:
- November 2001
- DOI:
- 10.1038/35107134
- Bibcode:
- 2001Natur.414..505C