Broca’s area: why was neurosurgery neglected for so long when seeking to re-establish the scientific truth?

International audienceIn 1861, Paul Broca reported the post-mortem lesion-symptom mapping of two aphasic patients. At that time, his two observations had a tremendous impact, because they gave strong support to a new theory of the phrenology of brain convolutions (instead of the phrenology of cranial morphology defended by Joseph Gall), grounding a lesional localizationism, and thus arguing definitely against the holistic theory. Unfortunately, for several reasons,Broca wrongly concluded that the essential centre for producing articulated speech was the posterior end of the inferior frontal gyrus. Since then, this misconception has been so anchored in the neurological community, that it is still taught worldwide to medical students, in textbooks as well as in courses at universities