Broca's vs. Wernicke's aphasia
After a stroke, a patient speaks fluently, but her sentences make little sense and she has trouble understanding speech. The lesion most likely involves:
Answer D: explanation for every choice
A
Broca's aphasia causes slow, effortful, nonfluent speech with relatively intact comprehension.
B
Damage to the arcuate fasciculus causes conduction aphasia: fluent speech and good comprehension but poor repetition.
C
The occipital lobe processes vision.
D
Correct. Wernicke's aphasia causes fluent but meaningless speech and poor comprehension.
TakeawayBroca's: broken speech, good comprehension. Wernicke's: fluent nonsense, poor comprehension.
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Reviewed 2026-11-05 by a medical student. Spot an error? Report it with question ID ps43.