ABSTRACT
The neuropsychology of language has progressed considerably in the last 10 years due to technical advances in cognitive neuroscience studies that have investigated brain activity with reference to the connectivity between brain areas, the timed changes of brain activation and the tracking of white matter fibres that connect brain areas. Aphasic syndromes were based on language disorders shown by stroke patients without the luxury of present modern neuroimaging techniques. The lesions associated with the different syndromes were often diffuse and poorly defined. Global aphasia is when there is extensive left hemisphere damage, sometimes due to occlusion of the stalk of middle cerebral artery. Patients may be initially mute and then show both Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia. The study of language disorders is dependent on an understanding that linguistic information is based on the assembly of different features at both input and output. Finally, there is the development of a language model that describes the processes underlying the perception of auditory presented language.
