Second, Broca's area where the components of language are integrated to produce meaning was less active.

ECONOMIST: Autism

If you read this article aloud to yourself (first make sure nobody is watching), your speech will be forged in Broca's area (a specialised zone in the front-left part of your brain).

ECONOMIST: What is music for?

The language centres of the brain, known as Broca's area and Wernicke's area, after the 19th-century researchers who discovered them, are part of the cerebral cortex on the left-hand side of the organ.

ECONOMIST: Reading minds | The

Dr Iacoboni discovered that the mirror neurons involved in grasping the intentions of others are in part of the right hemisphere that corresponds to Broca's area in the left hemisphere, and both also correspond with mirror-neuron sites in monkeys.

ECONOMIST: As others see us | The