![[FLASHBACK] How do we classify parts of the brain?
I’ll begin by talking about the major parts of cortex. Cortex is the outer part of the brain. All the bodies of neurons are in this outer part of the brain, and it’s the parts of the brain you typically think of. Cortex is divided into four lobes: frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital.
The frontal lobe is where you process all of those higher order things that we typically think separates us from animals (which may or may not be true). We use this part of our brain to make decisions, such as “Do I want this cake right now or later?”; to make moral judgments and decide on right and wrong- “Would it be bad if I threw this book at that irritating person?”; to “feel” as in emotions, such as “Wow, today was a bad day. I’m really sad.”; to keep things in short term memory- if I told you to remember the word “chair” and keep reading and there would be a quiz at the end, you would probably repeat it to yourself using an area in this part of your brain.
The temporal lobe is much simpler and is devoted to hearing. Processing sound is much more complicated than you’d think! You have to discern words from sounds and figure out what they mean. “Oh, that’s a siren. Someone must be in trouble!” You also have to figure out where they are coming from, “Is that siren heading this way? Should I pull my car over?” Your brain does this with such ease that you don’t even have to really think about it. The temporal lobe also houses the hippocampus, a structure you may or may not have heard of before. It is what enters information into long-term memory. Those baseball stats you can remember as well as what you ate for dinner last Thursday have been encoded by the hippocampus.
The parietal lobe is devoted to somatosensation, which is a big word for touch. Everything you feel, texture, shape, etc. is brought to the parietal lobe for analysis. Additionally, your placement of your body, in terms of where your leg is in relation to the other leg but also in the world (i.e. up on a footstool) is encoded by the parietal lobe. Attention also has a big role in this lobe, as you decide what to pay attention to- your teacher’s lecture? this blog? and actually do so.
Finally, the occipital lobe is devoted to vision. Vision is incredibly complex and combines all the factors of depth perception, shape, form, color, and movement of objects. The occipital lobe is really the first place where visual information starts to be decoded before it travels to other lobes to be further analysed and put together into what you are actually seeing.
[Image Source] I want to do a reminder of this because I’m going to go into the basal ganglia next.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l9z5pjxu481qb6etto1_400.jpg)
[FLASHBACK] How do we classify parts of the brain?
I’ll begin by talking about the major parts of cortex. Cortex is the outer part of the brain. All the bodies of neurons are in this outer part of the brain, and it’s the parts of the brain you typically think of. Cortex is divided into four lobes: frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital.
The frontal lobe is where you process all of those higher order things that we typically think separates us from animals (which may or may not be true). We use this part of our brain to make decisions, such as “Do I want this cake right now or later?”; to make moral judgments and decide on right and wrong- “Would it be bad if I threw this book at that irritating person?”; to “feel” as in emotions, such as “Wow, today was a bad day. I’m really sad.”; to keep things in short term memory- if I told you to remember the word “chair” and keep reading and there would be a quiz at the end, you would probably repeat it to yourself using an area in this part of your brain.
The temporal lobe is much simpler and is devoted to hearing. Processing sound is much more complicated than you’d think! You have to discern words from sounds and figure out what they mean. “Oh, that’s a siren. Someone must be in trouble!” You also have to figure out where they are coming from, “Is that siren heading this way? Should I pull my car over?” Your brain does this with such ease that you don’t even have to really think about it. The temporal lobe also houses the hippocampus, a structure you may or may not have heard of before. It is what enters information into long-term memory. Those baseball stats you can remember as well as what you ate for dinner last Thursday have been encoded by the hippocampus.
The parietal lobe is devoted to somatosensation, which is a big word for touch. Everything you feel, texture, shape, etc. is brought to the parietal lobe for analysis. Additionally, your placement of your body, in terms of where your leg is in relation to the other leg but also in the world (i.e. up on a footstool) is encoded by the parietal lobe. Attention also has a big role in this lobe, as you decide what to pay attention to- your teacher’s lecture? this blog? and actually do so.
Finally, the occipital lobe is devoted to vision. Vision is incredibly complex and combines all the factors of depth perception, shape, form, color, and movement of objects. The occipital lobe is really the first place where visual information starts to be decoded before it travels to other lobes to be further analysed and put together into what you are actually seeing.
[Image Source] I want to do a reminder of this because I’m going to go into the basal ganglia next.
