Glimpsed at last - the life of neuropsychology's most important patient

Leborgne's brain Monsieur Leborgne, nicknamed Tan Tan, for that was the only syllable he could utter (save for a swear word or two), died in the care of the neurologist Paul Broca in Paris on April 17, 1861. Arguably the most important case in the history of neuropsychology, Leborgne's death coincided with a debate raging in scholarly circles about the location of language function in the brain. When Broca autopsied Leborgne's brain, he observed a malformation on the left frontal lobe - "Broca's area" - and concluded this was the site of speech production, a moment that the historian Stanley Finger has described as a "key turning point in the history of the brain sciences". Broca was far from being the first person to propose that speech function is located in the frontal lobes, but crucially, the evidence from Leborgne helped him persuade the academic community. For centuries experts had believed mental functions were located in the brain's hollows; that the cortex ("husk" in Latin) was little more than a rind of tissue and blood vessels. Today, problems producing language are still termed Broca's aphasia in recognition of Broca's landmark contribution, although Broca in fact named Leborgne's problems aphémie (meaning “without speech”). The Greek term “aphasia” (also meaning “speechlessness”), adopted by medicine, was coined in Broca's day by the physician Armand Trousseau. Far more is known about Gage's life In terms of the historical record, Le...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs