1. The Brain: Our Control Center
Every person is unique because of our capacity for learning and thinking.
In Ancient times people believed that humans were different from animals because we had a soul or demon inhabiting our bodies.
The Ancient Egyptians believed that a little person dwelled within the skill and regulated the behavior.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle thought that the soul set up quarters in the heart.
BF Skinner noted that the English language still reflects the belief in the heart as the seat of the will (deep in one’s heart, to know something by heart, to have a change of heart).
Today we recognize that human’s ability to think and reason comes from our brains.

2. Parts of the Brain
The human brain is composed of many parts that work to organize our movements and create our thoughts.
The brain is divided into three sections; the hindbrain, the midbrain and the forebrain.
The hindbrain is the lower portion of the brain and is involved in many vital functions such as heart rate, respiration and balance.
The midbrain includes areas that are involved in vision and hearing
The forebrain, the front area, is involved in complex functions such as thought and emotion.

4. The Hindbrain
The medulla, the pons and the cerebellum are the structures of the hindbrain. The hindbrain is found in the lower part of the brain stem.
The medulla is involved in largely unconscious but vital functions such as circulating blood, breathing, muscle tone, and regulating reflexes (sneezing, coughing…)
The pons (literally bridge) includes a bridge of fibers that connects the brain stem and cerebellum. It is also involved with sleep and arousal.
The cerebellum is the Latin word for little brain.
The cerebellum looks like the larger part if the brain under which it rests, but it is much smaller. It is critical in balance and coordination. One of the first impaired by alcohol.

5. The Midbrain
The midbrain is located between the hindbrain and the forebrain.
Areas within the midbrain are involved in vision and hearing and integrating sensory process.
In addition, an important system of dopamine-releasing neurons that projects into higher brain centers originates here, its deterioration leads to Parkinson's disease.
Running through the hind and midbrain is the reticular formation- lying at the central core of the brain stem it modulates muscle reflexes, breathing and pain perception as well as sleep and arousal.

6. The Forebrain
The four areas of the forebrain are the thalamus, the hypothalamus, the limbic system and the cerebrum. It is the largest and most complex region of the brain.
The forebrain is what makes it possible for humans to engage in complex thinking processes.
1. Thalamus: a critical structure of the brain because it serves as a relay station for sensory stimulation. Messages from the sense organs go through the thalamus into other parts of the brain. (pain in your big toe, travels to your brain)
2. Hypothalamus: lies below the thalamus. It is very tiny, but very important because it is involved in many aspects of behavior and physiological functions. It plays a major role in the regulation of the biological drives related to survival, fight, flight, feeding and mating.
It is vital to the regulation of body temperature, the storage of nutrients and various aspects of motivation and emotion. (hunger, thirst, sex and aggression)

7. 3. The limbic system forms a fringe along the inner edge of the cerebrum. It is involved in learning, memory (hippocampus), emotion (amygdala= fear) , hunger, sex and aggression.
If parts of the system are damaged people can recall old memories but can’t make new ones.
4. The cerebrum is the crowning glory of the brain. Only in human beings does the cerebrum make up such a large part of the brain. (70% of the weight of the brain)
The surface of the cerebrum is wrinkled with ridges and valleys, this surface is called the cerebral cortex; it is the outer later of the brain.
It is the part of the brain that we tend to think of when we talk about the brain. It is the part that makes us uniquely human, the part that thinks.
Its concerned with memory, language, emotions, complex motor function, perception and more…

8. The Cerebral Cortex
The cerebral cortex is composed of two sides, a left side and a right side. Each side is called a hemisphere.
In the brain, the structure that connects the two hemispheres is a corpus callosum.
Interestingly enough, information received from one side of the body is transmitted to the opposite hemisphere of the brain.
Each hemisphere of the cerebral cortex is divided into four parts or lobes. The frontal lobe lies behind the forehead and the parietal lobe lies to the rear of the head. The temporal lobe lies to the side, below the ears. The occipital lobe is at the back of the head.

9. The occipital lobe contains the primary visual area of the cerebral cortex.
Damage to different parts of the occipital lobe can create unusual conditions; people may be able to recognize an object, but they may be unable to differentiate it from another object that is similar.
The hearing or auditory area of the cortex lies in the temporal lobe.
Messages received from the skin senses are projected to the sensory cortex in the parietal lobe.
The motor cortex in the frontal lobe controls our movements.

10. Association Areas
Much of the cerebral cortex is composed of areas that are directly responsible for sensory and motor functions.
Other areas, called association areas, serve mainly to shape information into something meaningful on which we can act.
Example: some neurons in the occipital lobe fire when we see vertical lines, some neurons fire when we see horizontal lines and then the association areas integrates the information so that we can see a meaningful form.
Other association areas make possible such complex psychological functions as thought and language.

11. Language Ability
Although the left and right hemispheres of the brain have many of the same functions, they differ in a number of ways.
Nearly all right handed people have language functions based in the left hemisphere of the brain.
Within the hemisphere containing the language functions, two key language areas are Broca’s area and Wenicke’s area. Damage to either is likely to cause an aphasia—difficulty with the specific aspects of understanding or producing language.
Wernicke’s are, in the temporal lobe, pieces together sounds and sights.
Broca’s area is located in the frontal lobe near the motor cortex section that controls the area of the face used for speaking. When Broca’s area is damaged, people speak slowly and laboriously, using simple sentences.

12. Left vs. Right Hemisphere
The same hemisphere that contains most language functions also is usually more involved in logic, problem solving and mathematical computation than is the other hemisphere.
The non language hemisphere is relatively more concerned with the imagination, art, feelings and spatial relations.
In our society, people who are very logical are said to be left brained, while people who are creative are called right brain.
Although some differences exist, the hemispheres do not act independently of each other.
Even though they are both capable of functioning by itself, the brain functions better when the two hemispheres work together.
One does play a role in language, and the other in feelings, but both hemispheres are involved in logic, creativity and intuition.

13. Methods of Studying the Brain
One way researchers have been able to see how the brain is related to psychological functions is through the study of accidents and brain damage.
Brain damage from head injuries can result in loss of vision and hearing, confusion or loss of memory. Matching the area of the brain hit with the symptoms has taught us a lot.
1. Electrical stimulation of the brain has shown that specific areas are associated with specific types of sensations or motor activities.
The Electroencephalogram is a device that records the electrical activity of the brain.
These can be used to help diagnose some kinds of psychological disorders and to help locate tumors.
2. Scans: CAT—can yield a three dimensional view of the brain
3. MRI: is more powerful than a CAT and shows detial more clearly
4. PET: scans different from the first two because they only show a snapshot of the brain whereas this shows the activity of the brain.

14. Brain Caps