Brain and language: What a difference a decade makes

The study of the neural basis of language has a special place in neurology and neuroscience. It was, after all, with the study of language that neurology gained its individuality and what we now call neuroscience began one and a half centuries ago. True, it is difficult to imagine a less likely place to start unravelling the mysteries of brain function. Nobody of sound mind would now begin that way, at the top of the complexity heap rather than at the bottom, but that is how it happened. Besides, science was a mad pursuit even then.