Lan­guage in the brain is processed in the tem­po­ral lobes. These are on the sides of your brain, next to you temples.

Dif­fer­ent areas in the tem­po­ral lobe (mostly on the left side of your brain) deal with dif­fer­ent aspects of lan­guage. For instance, the Wer­nicke area is the one that allows you to under­stand words. The Broca area, on the other hand, is the one that allows you to pro­duce lan­guage or artic­u­late words.

Dam­age to Wernicke’s area causes Wernicke’s apha­sia, a con­di­tion in which peo­ple can hear lan­guage being spo­ken, but can­not under­stand it. Dam­age to Broca’s area causes Broca’s apha­sia, a con­di­tion in which peo­ple have trou­ble pro­duc­ing language.

Below you will find a brain exer­cise that tar­gets the neu­rons in your lan­guage areas. When to try to solve the prob­lems, words (i.e., neu­rons and groups of neu­rons) in your left tem­po­ral lobe will be acti­vated, elec­tri­cal and chem­i­cal sig­nals will travel from neu­ron to neu­ron. This stim­u­la­tion is cru­cial for good brain health!

Ready to stim­u­late neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobe?

Read each def­i­n­i­tion and try to find the cor­re­spond­ing words. (Answers appear below).

_________________ = A plant hav­ing a per­ma­nently woody main stem, usu­ally grow­ing to a high height, and devel­op­ing branches at some dis­tance from the ground.

_________________ = A large, usu­ally tawny-yellow cat, native to Africa and south­ern Asia, hav­ing a tufted tail.

_________________ = The nutri­tious, orange to yel­low root of a plant of the pars­ley family.

_________________ = An arti­cle of fur­ni­ture con­sist­ing of a flat top sup­ported on one or more legs.

_________________ = An insti­tu­tion where instruc­tion is given.

_________________ = A mov­ing cage for car­ry­ing pas­sen­gers from one level to another.

_________________ = A device for trans­mis­sion of sound or speech to a dis­tant point

_________________ = a body of water of con­sid­er­able size, sur­rounded by land.

_________________ = A domes­tic fowl bred for its flesh, eggs, and feathers.

_________________ = A shal­low, usu­ally cir­cu­lar dish from which food is eaten.

_________________ = A pre­cip­i­ta­tion in the form of ice crystals.

_________________ = Any cir­cu­lat­ing medium of exchange

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Answers

Tree
Lion
Car­rot
Table
School
Ele­va­tor
Tele­phone
Lake
Chicken
Plate
Snow
Money

— This arti­cle was writ­ten by Pas­cale Mich­e­lon, Ph. D., for SharpBrains.com. Copy­right 2008. Dr. Mich­e­lon has a Ph.D. in Cog­ni­tive Psy­chol­ogy and has worked as a Research Sci­en­tist at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity in Saint Louis, in the Psy­chol­ogy Depart­ment. She con­ducted sev­eral research projects to under­stand how the brain makes use of visual infor­ma­tion and mem­o­rizes facts. She is now an Adjunct Fac­ulty at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity, and teaches Mem­ory Work­shops in numer­ous retire­ment com­mu­ni­ties in the St Louis area.

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