Role of the Temporal Lobe

The human brain is composed of billions of nerve cells that control our every thought, movement, sensation and emotion. Although often thought of as a single unit, it actually consists of three components: the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the brain stem. The largest component is the cerebrum, which is composed of left and right hemispheres.

Each hemisphere has four lobes--frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital--which have specific functions. The temporal lobe is located around the level of your ears and plays a critical role in memory, auditory input, language and personality.

Memory

• Scientists learn how the brain functions, in part, by observing how damage in specific parts of the brain affects certain behaviors and abilities. According to Neuroskills.com, it has been discovered that lesions in the left temporal lobe can impair memories for spoken words, while lesions in the right can impair non-verbal memories, such as drawings, faces and music. Damage to a specific area of the temporal lobe, the medial temporal lobe, can result in anterograde amnesia, the inability to remember new facts or events.

Language

• The left temporal lobe is important for remembering and understanding language. A person suffering from damage to certain areas of the left temporal lobe will have trouble understanding spoken words and might speak in rambling nonsensical sentences while believing himself to be perfectly coherent. This is known as Wernicke's aphasia. Neuroskills.com reports that lesions to the right temporal lobe can cause a person to talk without inhibition.

Audition

• The ability to process language and audition are naturally linked, so it is not surprising that the temporal lobe controls the ability to process auditory information. Patients with lesions in the auditory cortex of the temporal lobe will likely suffer from a condition called auditory agnosia. The medical dictionary mondofacto.com defines auditory agnosia as the inability to recognize sounds, words or music. Lesions occurring on the right side affect the ability to process music; lesions on the left disrupt the ability to understand words.

Personality

• Damage to the temporal lobe has also been shown to result in marked changes in personality. Such injury is usually due to a temporal lobe seizure, which occurs in the part of the temporal lobe that processes emotions. According to Patient UK, individuals with this form of temporal lobe damage-- particularly in the right temporal lobe--may develop aggressive or paranoid tendencies, a preoccupation with religion, or egocentricity. Neuroskills.com states that temporal lobe seizures can affect one's sexual behavior, in particular causing an increase in sexual activity.

Vision

• There is evidence that the temporal lobe has some control over the processing of visual information. Injury to the either hemisphere of the temporal lobe can result in difficulty remembering visual content. In particular, damage to special area in the right temporal lobe can affect the ability to remember faces, which is known as prosopagnosia.