by Jordan Gaines Lewis, The Conversation
What’s Hodor’s back story? Credit: Bruna Schenkel, CC BY
Hodor hodor hodor. Hodor hodor? Hodor. Hodor-hodor. Hodor!
Oh, um, excuse me. Did you catch what I said?
Fans of the hit HBO show Game of Thrones, the fifth season of which premieres this Sunday, know what I'm referencing, anyway. Hodor is the brawny, simple-minded stableboy of the Stark family in Winterfell. His defining characteristic, of course, is that he only speaks a single word: "Hodor."
But those who read the A Song of Ice and Fire book series by George R R Martin may know something that the TV fans don't: his name isn't actually Hodor. According to his great-grandmother Old Nan, his real name is Walder. "No one knew where 'Hodor' had come from," she says, "but when he started saying it, they started calling him by it. It was the only word he had."
Whether he intended it or not, Martin created a character who is a textbook example of someone with a neurological condition called expressive aphasia.
Losing speech ability
In 1861, French physician Paul Broca was introduced to a man named Louis-Victor Leborgne. While his comprehension and mental functioning remained relatively normal, Leborgne progressively lost the ability to produce meaningful speech over a period of 20 years. Like Hodor, the man was nicknamed Tan because he only spoke a single word: "Tan."
Just a few days after meeting Broca, Leborgne passed away. Broca's autopsy determined tissue damage, or a "lesion", in the frontal lobe of Leborgne's left brain hemisphere, just next to a brain fold called the lateral sulcus. Over the next two years, Broca acquired brains from 12 more patients with Leborgne's symptoms – all of the autopsy evidence was strikingly consistent.
This video is not supported by your browser at this time.
Neuroscientists are still examining this small region of the brain, now often referred to as "Broca's area" to work out its many functions. While most research has focused on a patient's inability to form syntactically complex sentences when this area is damaged, more recent work using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has also reported that Broca's area is active during language comprehension tasks, interpretation of movement, and comprehending various gestures also associated with speech, such as waving goodbye.
Telegraphic speech and brain damage
In collaboration with French scientists in 2007, a group at the University of California revisited the brains of Leborgne and Lelong (another of Broca's patients who could only speak five words) using magnetic resonance imaging. One of their most interesting findings was that their lesions extended much deeper than Broca had reported, suggesting that multiple brain regions were probably contributing to their speech deficits.
This evidence of widespread damage is unsurprising. Leborgne, Lelong – and even Hodor – are actually more extreme examples of individuals with expressive aphasia. More commonly, a person with the disorder will express themselves in "telegraphic speech", which usually comprises three or so words, including a noun and a verb. For example, someone may say, "Anne, dog, walk" to mean "I walked the dog with Anne today."
Leborgne (A,B) meet Lelong (C,D). Credit: Brain: A Journal of Neurology
The most common cause of expressive aphasia is stroke, which occurs when a blood clot blocks a vessel in the brain, resulting in tissue damage due to lack of oxygen. It's estimated that expressive aphasia occurs in 12% of stroke patients, while roughly 35% of stroke patients suffer from a language aphasia of some form.
Expressive aphasia can also be caused by a tumour, haemorrhage, a haematoma in the membrane covering of the brain, or trauma to the head. It has been reported that Leborgne suffered from epileptic seizures as a child – some have speculated that he may have experienced head trauma during one such episode.
So what's Hodor's story? Did he sustain a blow to the head, suffer a stroke, or was he simply a giant baby dropped by his mother?
He may only speak one word, but like the other characters in the show, Hodor too may have a quite an interesting backstory.
Explore further: Brain's iconic seat of speech goes silent when we actually talk
This story is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives).
Medical Xpress on facebook
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by Jordan Gaines Lewis, The Conversation
What’s Hodor’s back story? Credit: Bruna Schenkel, CC BY
Hodor hodor hodor. Hodor hodor? Hodor. Hodor-hodor. Hodor!
Oh, um, excuse me. Did you catch what I said?
Fans of the hit HBO show Game of Thrones, the fifth season of which premieres this Sunday, know what I'm referencing, anyway. Hodor is the brawny, simple-minded stableboy of the Stark family in Winterfell. His defining characteristic, of course, is that he only speaks a single word: "Hodor."
But those who read the A Song of Ice and Fire book series by George R R Martin may know something that the TV fans don't: his name isn't actually Hodor. According to his great-grandmother Old Nan, his real name is Walder. "No one knew where 'Hodor' had come from," she says, "but when he started saying it, they started calling him by it. It was the only word he had."
Whether he intended it or not, Martin created a character who is a textbook example of someone with a neurological condition called expressive aphasia.
Losing speech ability
In 1861, French physician Paul Broca was introduced to a man named Louis-Victor Leborgne. While his comprehension and mental functioning remained relatively normal, Leborgne progressively lost the ability to produce meaningful speech over a period of 20 years. Like Hodor, the man was nicknamed Tan because he only spoke a single word: "Tan."
Just a few days after meeting Broca, Leborgne passed away. Broca's autopsy determined tissue damage, or a "lesion", in the frontal lobe of Leborgne's left brain hemisphere, just next to a brain fold called the lateral sulcus. Over the next two years, Broca acquired brains from 12 more patients with Leborgne's symptoms – all of the autopsy evidence was strikingly consistent.
This video is not supported by your browser at this time.
Neuroscientists are still examining this small region of the brain, now often referred to as "Broca's area" to work out its many functions. While most research has focused on a patient's inability to form syntactically complex sentences when this area is damaged, more recent work using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has also reported that Broca's area is active during language comprehension tasks, interpretation of movement, and comprehending various gestures also associated with speech, such as waving goodbye.
Telegraphic speech and brain damage
In collaboration with French scientists in 2007, a group at the University of California revisited the brains of Leborgne and Lelong (another of Broca's patients who could only speak five words) using magnetic resonance imaging. One of their most interesting findings was that their lesions extended much deeper than Broca had reported, suggesting that multiple brain regions were probably contributing to their speech deficits.
This evidence of widespread damage is unsurprising. Leborgne, Lelong – and even Hodor – are actually more extreme examples of individuals with expressive aphasia. More commonly, a person with the disorder will express themselves in "telegraphic speech", which usually comprises three or so words, including a noun and a verb. For example, someone may say, "Anne, dog, walk" to mean "I walked the dog with Anne today."
Leborgne (A,B) meet Lelong (C,D). Credit: Brain: A Journal of Neurology
The most common cause of expressive aphasia is stroke, which occurs when a blood clot blocks a vessel in the brain, resulting in tissue damage due to lack of oxygen. It's estimated that expressive aphasia occurs in 12% of stroke patients, while roughly 35% of stroke patients suffer from a language aphasia of some form.
Expressive aphasia can also be caused by a tumour, haemorrhage, a haematoma in the membrane covering of the brain, or trauma to the head. It has been reported that Leborgne suffered from epileptic seizures as a child – some have speculated that he may have experienced head trauma during one such episode.
So what's Hodor's story? Did he sustain a blow to the head, suffer a stroke, or was he simply a giant baby dropped by his mother?
He may only speak one word, but like the other characters in the show, Hodor too may have a quite an interesting backstory.
Explore further: Brain's iconic seat of speech goes silent when we actually talk
This story is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives).
Medical Xpress on facebook
Related Stories
Brain's iconic seat of speech goes silent when we actually talk
For 150 years, the iconic Broca's area of the brain has been recognized as the command center for human speech, including vocalization. Now, scientists at UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland ...
Psychologist identifies area of brain key to choosing words
New research by a Rice University psychologist clearly identifies the parts of the brain involved in the process of choosing appropriate words during speech.
New technique helps stroke victims communicate
(Medical Xpress)—Stroke victims affected with loss of speech caused by Broca's aphasia have been shown to speak fluidly through the use of a process called "speech entrainment" developed by researchers ...
New understanding of stroke damage may aid recovery
Stroke can lead to a wide range of problems such as depression and difficulty moving, speaking and paying attention. Scientists have thought these issues were caused by damage to the brain's "computer processors"—cells ...
New treatments may help restore speech lost to aphasia
(HealthDay)—Most people know the frustration of having a word on the "tip of your tongue" that they simply can't remember. But that passing nuisance can be an everyday occurrence for someone with aphasia, ...
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Scientists question representation of women in international journal
Three leading cognitive scientists from Carnegie Mellon University are questioning the gender representation of invited contributors in the special February 2015 issue, "The Changing Face of Cognition," published by the international ...
Mental practice and physical therapy effective treatment for stroke, research shows
A combination of mental practice and physical therapy is an effective treatment for people recovering from a stroke, according to researchers at Georgia State University.
Signal variability and cognitive performance in the aging human brain
As we age, the physical make up of our brains changes. This includes changes in neural processing in grey matter, but also in the deterioration of structural connections in the brain, which allow communication ...
How the brain balances risk-taking and learning
If you had 10 chances to roll a die, would you rather be guaranteed to receive $5 for every roll ($50 total) or take the risk of winning $100 if you only roll a six?
Touch-sensing neurons are multitaskers
Two types of touch information—the feel of an object and the position of an animal's limb—have long been thought to flow into the brain via different channels and be integrated in sophisticated processing ...
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