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Trauma Treatment and Understanding the Brain

Techniques devised to treat brain injuries have revealed not only relationships between areas of the brain and particular abilities but also how resilient the brain can be.

  1. Broca's Area

    • Trauma to Broca's area impairs oral fluency, particularly in the use of "little" words such as prepositions, pronouns and conjunctions, according to the book "The Broken Brain," by Nancy Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D.

    Wernicke's Area

    • Damage to Wernicke's area destroys the speaker's ability to put words together meaningfully, notes David Myers, Ph.D. in the 6th edition of his book, "Psychology."

    Frontal Lobes

    • Trauma to the frontal lobes can demolish inhibitions, impoverishing moral and social judgment, notes Myers. Depending on where exactly it occurs, it can also impair motor abilities, spatial abilities and creativity, according to Andreasen.

    Schizophrenia

    • Magnetic resonance imaging shows that schizophrenics have abnormally large ventricles (fluid-filled spaces in the midbrain), observe Katherine Fortinash and Patricia Holoday-Worret, in the book "Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing."

    Facial Recognition

    • A stroke damaging the right temporal lobe can rob its victim of the ability to recognize familiar faces, notes Myers.

    Plasticity

    • As if to highlight how resilient the brain can be, a five-year-old boy's seizures caused physicians to remove half his brain (the left hemisphere), yet he went on to develop above average intelligence and earn a college degree, notes Myers.

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