Broca’s area is the brain region classically associated with producing spoken language.
It lies in the dominant frontal lobe, usually the left inferior frontal gyrus. In most right-handed people and many left-handed people, the left hemisphere is dominant for language. The region is named after French surgeon and anatomist Paul Broca, who described patients with severely impaired speech but relatively preserved understanding in the 1860s.
Broca’s area is traditionally linked with expressive aphasia, also called Broca’s aphasia. People with this condition may understand much of what they hear but speak slowly, laboriously, and with reduced grammar. The older textbook division between “speech production” and “speech comprehension” is simplified: modern research shows that language depends on interacting networks extending well beyond one cortical patch.
Broca’s area is commonly contrasted with Wernicke’s area, which is associated with language comprehension. The two regions communicate through long-range white-matter pathways, including the arcuate fasciculus.