The brain is a complex structure and but can be organised according to several principles. One approach is to characterise the brain regions according to the microscopic properties of these regions. More specifically the neurons are organised differently between regions. Some regions may contain unique types of neurons. This approach to understanding the organisation of the brain was proposed by the German Neuropathologist Korbinian Brodmann and resulted in the eponymously named Brodmann Area. There are 52 areas in all and I have covered other Brodmann Areas elsewhere in this Blog. This is the third in a series on one of these areas – Brodmann Area 22. A simple search strategy was adopted. The term ‘Brodmann Area 22′ was used to search in Medline using the PubMed interface. Relevant results were identified and included.
In a PET study sentence generation was correlated with activity in BA22 compared to other areas which were correlated with the generation of melodic phrases. A new approach to cortical mapping is described in this study which includes a remapping of multiple areas including BA22. Compensatory changes in brain areas are seen after a period of sleep deprivation. In one functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging study the researchers found compensatory changes in areas including BA22 observed while subjects played a computer following a period of sleep deprivation (paper freely available here). Delivery of pure tones was associated with activation in multiple areas including BA22 in this single photon Emission Computed Tomography study. BA22 was one of the areas that differentiated subjects with Parkinsons’s Disease who responded to Levodopa with mood changes from subjects with Parkinson’s Disease who didn’t respond to Levodopa with such changes when imaged with Positron Emission Tomography following a Levodopa challenge in this study (freely available here). BA22 was activated during a task involving recognition of emotional prosody in this fMRI study. BA22 was selected for investigation of the presence of Age Related Glycation End-Products in this post-mortem study contrasting people who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease with a control group (paper freely available here).
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