Postmortem studies

[1] Postmortem researchers conduct a longitudinal study of the brain of an individual, who has some sort of phenomenological condition (i.e. cannot speak, trouble moving left side of body, Alzheimer's, etc.)

[2] These irregularities, damage, or other cerebral anomalies observed in the brain are attributed to an individual's pathophysiology and their environmental surroundings.

Before the time of the MRI, CAT Scan, or X-ray it was one of the few ways to study the relation between behavior and the brain.

Paul Broca used postmortem studies to link a specific area of the brain with speech production.

However his research focused more on patients who could speak, however their speech made little sense and/or had trouble understanding spoken words or sentences.

Postmortem studies allows for researchers to give information that is relevant to individuals by explaining the causes of particular diseases and behaviors.

Another benefit to postmortem studies is that researchers have the ability to make a wide range of discoveries, because of the many different techniques used to obtain tissue samples.