Left Prefrontal Cortex

Definition

The left prefrontal cortex is an area of the brain that plays a crucial role in language processing and production as well as logical reasoning.

Analogy

Consider your left prefrontal cortex like your smartphone’s autocorrect feature. It helps you form coherent sentences (language processing), corrects mistakes (logical reasoning) and assists you in expressing yourself effectively.

Related terms

Broca’s Area: A region in the frontal lobe of the dominant hemisphere (usually left) associated with speech production.

Wernicke’s Area: A region in our cerebral cortex linked with comprehension or understanding language.

Hemispheric Specialization/Lateralization: Refers to how some neural functions tend to be more dominant in one hemisphere than another; for example language tends to be processed more on left side for most people.