Brodmann's
Interactive Atlas
AREA
22
(Superior Temporal Gyrus - Part
of Wernicke's area)
Associated
Functions
- Receptive language (Many articles in general)
- Language-related
- Selective attention to speech (16340161)
- Affective prosody comprehension (Right) (15670701)
- Learning a tone-based second language (Left) (14614812)
- Repeating words (7891885)
- Auditory
- Nonverbal sounds processing (Right) (15204072)
- Processing complex sounds (10489865)
- Lexico-semantic access to melodic representations
(Anterior) (9117371)
- Visual
- Remembered saccades (Right) (7953589)
- Other
- Attribution of intentions to others (10679187)
- Deductive reasoning (9869705)
Reviewer's note
Damage of BA22 in the left hemisphere results in
Wernicke's aphasia (language disorder characterized by fluent speech,
paraphasias -wrongly produced words-, and language understanding
defects). Wernicke's aphasia however, is quite variable, depending on
the
exact location and extent of the brain damage. The diversity of
linguistic functions observed in functional studies reinforces its
crucial role in language reception and processing. Sounds with complex
spectral intensity and temporal structures (words, speech, music)
activates spatially extensive associative auditory areas in both
hemispheres (BA 21/22), but right BA22 plays the
fundamental role in nonverbal sound processing. As it is
an auditory association
area, its activation during non-auditory related tasks seems
intriguing, e.g., “remembered saccades”; however, it should be noted
that
“remembered saccades” activates an extensive network
including the striate and extra-striate cortex, posterior parietal
cortex, frontal eye fields, supplementary motor area, insula,
cingulate, thalamus, midbrain, cerebellum and BA22; BA22 participation
is thus quite tangential. “Deductive reasoning” activates
a complex brain network including in the left BA21/22/32/37/45/46/47
(kind of “executive function circuitry”), emphasizing that
reasoning is partially mediated by language
.