Nuts About Neuro
During the fall of my sophomore year I took the course Behavioral Neurobiology. Over the course of the semester my fascination with Neuroscience grew. The course became so much more than getting credit for my major. I took extensive notes in class, spent hours reviewing said notes, went to office hours, studied constantly, and it was the first time in my academic career at Wesleyan that I enjoyed working that hard. I genuinely wanted to learn more. Looking back, I vividly remember learning about Wernicke’s aphasia and Broca’s aphasia. Both are language disorders:
Wernicke’s
- Caused by damage to the temporal lobe
- Results in fluent sentences that are nonsensical (word salad)
- These individuals have difficulty understanding spoken and written language as well
- Not able to recognize their speech errors
Broca’s
- Caused by damage to the frontal lobe
- Results in slowed, labored speech, with language comprehension entirely intact
- Able to recognize their speech errors
What has stuck with me since learning about this content was that people with Wernicke’s aphasia are typically much happier than those with Broca’s aphasia. Even though you can speak and understand with Broca’s, knowing what you want to say and struggling so much to say it is beyond frustrating. Wernicke’s allows people to be blissfully unaware, Broca’s does not. Learning the science behind these aphasias, thinking about how you could try and help people still live fulfilling lives despite a brain injury, or any kind of disorder/disease awoke a passion inside of me. This course pushed me to decide to declare as a Neuroscience and Behavior major, and made me realize that it is my dream career to work in Neuroscience.
