ABSTRACT
Among the “higher” brain activities – defined as functions that are complex in integration and rich in structural foundation – the communicative sciences are paramount. They encompass sending and receiving signals by several modes – auditory, visual, tactile, and olfactory. Verbal language is claimed as the unique achievement of humankind and communication through speech, its formation, articulation, and comprehension, merits first place in the communicative sciences. The keynote was sounded by the Darwinian crusader, Thomas Huxley:
The 19th century’s historical interest in problems of speech stimulated the field of neurology and propelled it toward the multidisciplinary neuroscience, taking second place only to the then-dominant neurophysiology. For a brief period in that century the localization of speech to a specific brain region was a major question in the broader problem of localization of function.
