Have you ever heard that we only use 10% of our brain? In fact, each part of our brain has an important function; some store our most cherished memories, some help us decide what coffee we want to order, and others are responsible for moving our muscles to get to the coffee shop.
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Jetzt kostenlos anmeldenHave you ever heard that we only use 10% of our brain? In fact, each part of our brain has an important function; some store our most cherished memories, some help us decide what coffee we want to order, and others are responsible for moving our muscles to get to the coffee shop.
Our brain is the reason we can interact with the world around us, receive information through our senses and act through our muscles.
Moreover, it is incredibly complex, and we're still working to understand all its secrets. To help us unpack how the brain works and communicate about it, we divide it into distinct structures. In this article, we will take a look inside our brain and what each part of this puzzle does, exploring the brain structure and function.
Then, we'll explore where different functions are localised and look at the brain structure involved in memory.
We'll move on to the concept of lateralisation and examine how is the left brain different to the right brain.
Throughout the years, psychologists have attempted to understand how the structures and sub-structures are connected and how these structures and connections cause our brain to operate the way it does.
The brain can be divided into four main structures: cerebrum, cerebellum, diencephalon, and brain stem. Out of all these structures, the cerebrum is the largest; it includes the entire cerebral cortex (the outer layer of the brain), as well as a few structures beneath it like the hippocampus, basal ganglia and the olfactory bulb.
The brain's cerebral cortex is also divided into smaller parts called lobes. Lobes are visibly separated from each other by folds and furrows of the brain. They are also distinct in terms of their functions.
The frontal lobe helps us regulate our emotions and control our behaviour. It can help us choose an emotional and behavioural response that is suitable to the situation we are in.
For example, it helps us recognise that it's inappropriate to kiss a stranger or help us control emotions of anger and rage at work, where expressing them would bring us trouble.
The temporal lobe allows us to recognise that our favourite song is playing and where it is coming from, it also helps us to process language.
People with damage to a part of the occipital lobe called the right fusiform gyrus experience prosopagnosia. Even though their vision remains perfectly normal, they lose the ability to recognise familiar faces. A person with prosopagnosia can't tell who is standing in front of them from their face, and can't even recognise their own face.
The diagram shows how the lobes are separated from each other and placed in relation to each other.
Subcortical brain structures are located deeper in the brain, below the cerebral cortex.
One subcortical structure is the diencephalon, which contains structures like the thalamus, responsible for transmitting sensory information to the cerebral cortex and the hypothalamus, which controls the autonomic nervous system. Under the hypothalamus, there is also the pituitary gland, responsible for excreting important hormones that regulate the stress response, growth, and metabolism.
The hypothalamus and thalamus are also a part of the limbic system, which additionally includes the amygdala, hippocampus, and cingulate gyrus. This system of structures is associated with memory and emotions.
Basal ganglia is a structure composed of a group of nuclei that together are responsible for motor control, they allow desired movements and inhibit undesired movements.
At the base of the brain lies the brain stem, which connects the cerebrum to our spinal cord. The brain stem controls biological functions like heartbeat, digestion, breathing and regulates sleep.
The brain stem is also connected to the cerebellum, a structure responsible for maintaining balance, movement coordination and learning sequences for motor movements, e.g., when learning to play an instrument.
The brain stem can be further divided into the midbrain, the pons, and the medulla. Because of its position, the brain stem is responsible for communicating sensory and motor information to and from the spinal cord. The midbrain controls our reflexes and the pons and the medulla are responsible for the control of the autonomic nervous system, sleep, and wakefulness processes.
Localisation of function in the brain refers to specific regions of the brain being responsible for specific functions. The following table covers the function of the brain and the associated areas responsible for said function.
Function | Brain structures responsible |
Motor control | Premotor and motor cortices (frontal lobe), cerebellum, basal ganglia |
Language | Broca's area (frontal lobe) is responsible for speech production, while Wernicke's area (temporal lobe) is responsible for speech comprehension |
Auditory processing | Auditory cortex (temporal lobe) |
Somatosensory processing | Somatosensory cortex (parietal lobe) |
Visual processing | Visual cortex (occipital lobe) |
Wilder Penfield was a brain surgeon who performed open brain surgery to treat patients with epilepsy. Before the surgery, he would electrically stimulate different areas of the brain to test what they are responsible for and avoid removing areas that are critical to functioning.
Using this method, he was able to identify the area of the brain responsible for sensory perception and memory.
Penfield wrote about his findings in 1959; he stressed that when stimulated both left and right temporal lobes can produce a spontaneous recall of previous experiences and concluded that these areas must be where the brain stores our memories.
For example, one patient when stimulated suddenly heard someone playing the piano and singing, a memory from his past.
He also found that some patients had interpretive experiences, where they would interpret what they were seeing or hearing at that moment in an unusual way.
For some patients, interpretive experiences involved feeling as though they have already experienced the situation. Other experiences involved sudden emotions or strange perceptions, which were hypothesised to be the result of a change in how they interpreted the situation.
As the findings of Penfield's research suggest, the temporal lobes play a crucial role in storing memories. Currently, we also know that the hippocampus, a structure in the temporal lobe, is especially important for storing episodic and autobiographical memories.
Another region, the medial temporal lobe is where semantic memory is stored, whiles the amygdala, a structure placed in the medial temporal lobe, is associated with the memory of emotional experiences. The prefrontal cortex is also important for memory, especially short-term memory.
Phineas Gage became one of the most famous case studies in psychology and neuroscience after he survived an accident during which a metal rod went right through his head. The accident occurred in 1848, at the time Phineas was working on the construction of a railroad. Phineas remained fully conscious after the accident and went to see a doctor, that couldn't believe what he was seeing.
After recovering from the surgery he received, Gage appeared to be regaining his ability to function, despite losing a portion of his brain, there wasn't a dramatic change in his memory and intelligence.
However, people that knew Gage reported that his personality has changed; he became aggressive and was drinking heavily, and his social skills also appeared to change, as he became more socially disinhibited and was acting inappropriately. The changes in his character were the reason he was fired from his previous job.
In 1994, 134 years after the death of Phineas Gage, Hanna Damasio and colleagues used modern neuroimaging techniques to learn more about Gage's injuries. Using x-rays of Phineas's skull, they reconstructed his injuries on a cadaver and concluded that the damage Gage experienced damage affected his prefrontal lobe and reached both of his hemispheres.
These areas are most associated with decision-making and emotional regulation, functions which could be impaired in the case of Phineas Gage.
You might have heard about our right hemisphere being more creative and the left being more analytical. The idea that one hemisphere is more specialised for a particular function is called lateralisation. To investigate whether the functioning of the two hemispheres is actually different, Sperry conducted a series of experiments on split-brain patients.
Split brain patients are those that have had their corpus callosum severed. The corpus callosum is a part of the brain that connects the two hemispheres together, allowing them to talk to each other.
In split-brain patients, the hemispheres are disconnected, which allowed Sperry to investigate how they work and process information separately.
Different functions of our brain are considered contralateral, meaning that information from the right side of the body (e.g. the right hand) is processed by the left hemisphere and vice versa. Sperry found that although the two hemispheres can both perform different functions, some functions are more lateralised. He found that language abilities are left-lateralised, while the right hemisphere is more specialised for spatial processing.
During his experiments, Sperry gave participants an object to feel with one hand and then the other. Participants were better at naming the object by touch when using the right hand. Similarly, when an object was shown to their right visual field, they were better at naming it as well. This shows that language relies mostly on the left hemisphere.
The 4 main structures of the brain involve cerebrum, cerebellum, diencephalon, and brain stem.
White matter is composed of the axons of neurons.
The hypothalamus.
The brain is made of 86 billion neurons that build and connect different structures of the brain, allowing it to function.
The brain is protected by structures called dura mater, arachnoid, and pia mater.
What was the name of the patient studied in the Damasio et al. study?
Phineas Gage
What was the aim of the Damasio et al. (1994) study?
Damasio et al. (1994) aimed to build a computerised model of Gage’s skull, including the damage from the iron rod, to help them figure out which brain parts were damaged during his accident.
What happened to Phineas Gage?
In 1848, Gage had an iron rod impale his head. The rod went clean through his head and damaged his brain.
What changes did Gage go through after his accident?
He used to be a responsible and calm man who many people liked, but after the accident, he went through some drastic personality changes and became rude and irresponsible.
What did Damasio et al. use to make the computerized model of Gage's skull?
They took pictures and an x-ray of Gage's skull.
How many possible entry and exit points did Damasio et al. test?
They tested 16 different exit points and 20 different entry points.
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