Strokes

[biology_06er]

Hi there

The other day in our lecture we were told that on the left cerebral hemisphere that the language areas eg: Broca's speech area and Wernicke's area and that if a left-handed and right-handed person were to suffer a stroke then the right-handed person would be more affected...however I can not remember the reason why could someone please enlighten me??? Does it have something to do that left-handed peoples actions are controled by the right handed sided of the body or something like that?....Also if both hemispheres are the same then what does the right cerbral hemisphere containing Broca's speech area etc do???

Thanks heaps
biology_06er

[xand_3r]

The left hemisphere controlls the right side of the body, while the right hemisphere contolls the left side of the body. That's because the pyramidal ways (that control voluntary conscious movements) are crossing in the medula oblongata (the lower part of the brain stem) so fibers from the left hemisphere will be distributed to muscles from the right part of the body. The same thing happens for most of the nonpyramidal ways (that control the muscle tone), which cross in the spinal chord. Also, most of the sensorial fibres cross in the spinal chord. The two hemispheres are structurally similar, but there are functional specializtions.