Brodmann area 22 is a Brodmann's area that is cytoarchitecturally located in the posterior superior temporal gyrus of the brain. In the left cerebral hemisphere, it is one portion of Wernicke's area.
Wernicke's Aphasia
Because Wernicke's area supports language comprehension in the temporal lobe, lesions to the left auditory cortex, specifically in BA 22, results in Wernicke's aphasia. Wernicke's aphasia, also known as receptive aphasia, is a language disorder characterized as having difficulty comprehending language. This disorder varies in outcomes based on severity and localization of the brain damage, which is most commonly due to having a stroke. Patients diagnosed with Wernicke's aphasia are shown to have normal intonation and rate of speech, however have difficulty understanding different words of a language. Many individuals have poor awareness when making errors in speech, but are typically able to produce normal sentence structures when speaking. These sentences produced by patients with Wernicke's aphasia are often difficult for others to understand because of the problems with word selection and comprehension. These difficulties are shown at a lexical level, for example patients often struggle with naming figures due to accessing words from the lexicon. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a technique used to study volume of grey matter and white matter in Brodmann area 22 to find deficits in the structural volume.
Parcellations
Brodmann areas are based on cytoarchitectonic parcellation using numbering associated with locations in the brain to illustrate functional activity. BA 22 is separated from the primary and secondary auditory cortex by using cytoarchitectonic parcellation.