Brodmann area 44

Brain: Brodmann area 44
Latin	Area opercularis
NeuroLex ID	birnlex_1776

Brodmann area 44, or BA44, is part of the frontal cortex in the human brain. Situated just anterior to premotor cortex (BA6) and on the lateral surface, inferior to BA9.

This area is also known as pars opercularis (of the inferior frontal gyrus), and it refers to a subdivision of the cytoarchitecturally defined frontal region of cerebral cortex. In the human it corresponds approximately to the opercular part of inferior frontal gyrus (H). Thus, it is bounded caudally by the inferior precentral sulcus (H) and rostrally by the anterior ascending limb of lateral sulcus (H). It surrounds the diagonal sulcus (H). In the depth of the lateral sulcus it borders on the insula. Cytoarchitectonically it is bounded caudally and dorsally by the agranular frontal area 6, dorsally by the granular frontal area 9 and rostrally by the triangular area 45 (Brodmann-1909).

Functions

• Together with left-hemisphere BA 45, the left hemisphere^[1] BA 44 comprises Broca's area a region involved in semantic tasks. Some data suggest that BA44 is more involved in phonological and syntactic processing. Some recent findings also suggest the implication of this region in music perception.^{[citation needed]}

Recent neuroimaging studies show BA44 involvement in selective response suppression in go/no- go tasks and is therefore believed to play an important role in the suppression of response tendencies.^[2]

Trivia

Scott Flansburg of San Diego, California is a "human calculator" who can perform complex arithmetic in his head. Interestingly when his brain was scanned while doing complex calculations using fMRI; which was recorded for the show Stan Lee's Superhumans; his brain activity in this region was absent. Instead he showed activity somewhat higher from area 44 and closer to the motor cortex.

Image

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  Animation.

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  Frontal view.

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  Lateral view.

Notes and references

1. ^ In 95.5% of right-handers and 61.4% of left-handers, therefore about 90% of the clinical population, speech is lateralised in the left hemisphere.
2. ^ Forstmann, Birte U.; Van den Wildenberg, Wery P.M. and Ridderinkhof, Richard K (2008). Neural Mechanisms, Temporal Dynamics, and Individual Differences in Interference Control. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 20:10, pp. 1854-65.

External links

• For Neuroanatomy of this area visit BrainInfo

See also

• Brodmann area
• List of regions in the human brain