What was the name of Paul Broca’s famous patient?

• A. Tan (Louis Victor Leborgne)
• B. Phineas Gage
• C. H. M.
• D. Clive Wearing

Answer: (A)

Expressive language production is localized to a specific region in the left frontal lobe, a finding established through the case of Louis Victor Leborgne, known as Tan. Tan could understand speech and follow commands, but he could only articulate a single syllable, "tan," before his death. This pattern pointed to a lesion in the left inferior frontal gyrus, now called Broca’s area, and it became the classic demonstration that a particular brain region is dedicated to language production. The other famous cases involve different deficits—Phineas Gage with personality changes after frontal damage, H. M. with severe anterograde amnesia after hippocampal removal, and Clive Wearing with widespread amnesia—so they do not identify the brain area tied to language production.