Forebrain o Highest level of the brain o Critical for complex cognitive emotional sensory motor functions Cerebral cortex Subcortical structures limbic system motivation emotion memory Corpus callosum bundle of fibers that connect the 2 hemispheres Thalamus communicates between different parts of the brain the sensory relay station Hypothalamus bodily functions breathing temperature hunger ANS hormone release via the pituitary gland pleasure center Amygdala strong emotions fear disgust etc Hippocampus memory formation o The hippocampus and amygdala are close to each other b c we often remember events w strong emotional meaning The limbic system separates the older and the newer parts of the brain o Basal ganglia movement regulate dopamine o 4 lobes Frontal lobe higher order thought impulses understanding Parietal lobe orientation space movement interpretation processing information about the environment Temporal lobe hearing music memory through the hippocampus Occipital lobe vision lobes aren t individual structures simply regions of the brain devoted to different things o Phineas Gage a rod went through his head though miraculously he survived however he became aggressive because of damage to his frontal lobe o Cortexes in the lobes Frontal lobe the association cortex the motor cortex and Broca s area motor aspects of producing speech Parietal lobe the somatosensory cortex relationship to sensory on body regions Temporal lobe Wernicke s area understanding language and the auditory musical cortex E g a woman who had seizures heard her mother singing lullabies because the neurons in her musical cortex were firing Saying a word you see written brain processes it in visual cortex Angular gyrus Wernicke s area Broca s area motor cortex E g Gabrielle Gifford former senator was in Tuscon shooting and was shot through the back of her head through her eye She could understand speech but couldn t talk due to damage to Broca s area The somatosensory cortex regions specialized for sense for certain parts of the body e g the tongue the jaw etc The more they are used the bigger space they take up in the brain Brain Plasticity Sensations in Phantom Limbs o Phantom limb syndrome following limb amputation some patients continue to feel sensations where the missing limb would be It is often painful o Stimulating areas of the face other body parts may activate sensations in the missing limb do to compensation of cortical area in somatosensory cortex o Mirror box used to teach amputees new mapping to increase voluntary control over o 2 hemispheres that can be separated to stop seizures storms of neurons firing each phantom limbs How is the brain divided has different functions o They can be tested o They are specialized o The mind is a subjective interpreter the right by the left o Contralateral the left side of our body is controlled by the right side of the brain and o The right visual field is processed by the left hemisphere of the brain and the left by the right each eye has its own left and right visual field Video on split brain o Right and left hemispheres have different functions o Contralateral processing o Right facial recognition spatial perceptual tasks o Left language centers can talk Hemineglect damage to right parietal cortex o When people can only process information on the right side o They forget about the left e g only shaving the right side of the face Video achieving hemispheric balance improving sports performance o Balancing strategy which occurs 1st in the right hemisphere with spatial conceptualization 2nd left hemisphere How does the brain change o Plasticity o The interplay of genes the environment wires the brain o The brain rewires itself throughout life o The brain can recover from injury o Frontal lobe continues to develop until your mid 20s This is why teens function differently e g impulse control o Importance of plasticity Brain changes in response to what you do Neurons fire well worn paths o However critical periods exist E g Jeannie was an abused neglected child and was rescued around the age of 13 and learned some skills e g walking etc but some were unrecoverable e g grammar Video activity exercise the brain o If we keep active we won t lose brain function as quickly as we get older o Experiment rats in an enhanced environment with toys and other rats had larger dendritic fields and more capillaries than rats living alone with no stimulation o They also compared rats with a lot of exercise and no cognitive stimulation with those with cognitive stimulation and no exercise and found that those with cognitive stimulation had more neural connections and those with exercise had a higher density of blood vessels so the 2 are independent o This implies that children with little learning opportunities aren t gaining as many neural o Fire together wire together when you use your brain and neurons are firing you are establishing connections Changes in use distort cortical maps connections memory o E g in London cab drivers have large hippocampi because they need a good spatial