Expressive (Broca's) aphasia results from damage to which region?

• A. Broca's area (inferior frontal gyrus)
• B. Wernicke's area (superior temporal gyrus)
• C. Angular gyrus
• D. Hippocampus

Answer: (A)

Expressive (Broca's) aphasia is about the brain region that plans and coordinates the movements of speech. It results from damage to Broca's area, located in the left inferior frontal gyrus. When this area is harmed, speech becomes non-fluent and effortful, often consisting of short, telegraphic phrases, with grammar simplified. Understanding can be relatively preserved, especially for simple sentences, and repetition is typically impaired because the motor planning for speech is disrupted.

Wernicke's area, in the left superior temporal gyrus, is the language comprehension center; damage here leads to fluent but often meaningless speech with poor understanding. The angular gyrus supports more complex language tasks like reading and writing and semantic processing; damage can cause problems with those skills. The hippocampus is key for memory, not language production, so its damage affects memory rather than expressive speech.