Kelsey Briceno
Chapter 2 Related Activity Option # 7
Building a Brain
The human brain is a very complicated thing but it is very amazing. The major structures
of the brain are the; cerebral cortex, corpus callosum, thalamus, limbic system, basal ganglia,
reticular formation, Pons, cerebellum, and medulla. The cerebral cortex, corpus callosum,
thalamus, limbic system and basal ganglia all are part of the forebrain. The reticular formation
is part of the midbrain and the Pons, cerebellum, and medulla are part of the hindbrain. All of
these parts do different things that are important for us. In the attached picture I have drawn
illustrations of some of the things that each part does.
The Pons there are two pictures I have drawn. One there is a person sleeping in a bed
because the Pons helps regulate our states of sleeping. Also I drew a picture of a telephone
wire and 2 people talking because of it. This represents how the Pons conducts information
from the bottom of the brain to the top. (Nevid, 2009).
Our medulla controls some of our important bodily processes. I drew three pictures in
this part. There is a heart beating to represent our heart rate. A person is sneezing in the middle
picture and then there is a person with the lungs shown to represent breathing. Other reflexes
that the medulla controls is coughing and swallowing. (Nevid, 2009).
The cerebellum is at the back, bottom of the brain. This is where our balance and
coordination is controlled. There is a picture of a person on a trapeze, a person who is standing
on an edge trying to keep their balance and a person who is falling over because they lost their
balance. Also an important thing to remember is that if the cerebellum gets hurt it can lead to
problems like becoming a paraplegic.
In the midbrain we have the reticular formation. This is where we regulate attention,
alertness, and arousal. (Nevid, 2009). On picture is of a person thinking because something
happened. The second picture is on a man whose hand is nearing a saw and he is not noticing
and his coworker has notice and is being alert. Also this looks at information we are collecting
and gets rid of what is not important.
Our basal ganglia are a cluster of nerve cells that regulates voluntary movement. (Nevid,
2009). One of our basic movements is walking which is something our basal ganglia regulate.
The picture in this section is of a person walking.
The thalamus is like relay stations which I drew relay cords. Also it is where our sensory
is for hearing, sight, taste, touch but not smell. There is a hand drawn for touch. Also there is a
face drawn with eyes, a mouth and ears but no nose. It doesn’t have a nose remember because
this is not where our sensory is for smell.
The limbic system consists of the amygdala, hippocampus and pars of the hypothalamus
and thalamus. Our limbic system is where we have emotional processing, motivated behavior
and learning and memory functions. (Nevid, 2009). The amygdala is where our emotional
response of fear comes from, which is where a face of a scared person is drawn. The
hippocampus plays an important part in our memory formation. (Nevid, 2009). The
hypothalamus takes care of many bodily functions. In the pictures I drew I showed that it
regulates temperature (a thermometer), our thirst (a person with a cup of water), and
aggression (a person hitting someone else). It also regulates hunger, reproductive processes
and response to stress.
Now, the cerebral cortex is like a cover or cap for our cerebrum so I drew a baseball cap.
In the cerebral cortex we have the occipital lobe, the parietal lobe, and the frontal lobe. The
occipital lobe helps with our sight so I drew eyes, a person covering their eyes because of
sunlight and a person “seeing stars” after being hit on the head. The parietal lobes are where
we have sensory information from our skin like hot/cold, pressure, touch and pain. In this
section I drew a hand pulling away from a hot fire because of pain and heat, also there is a
picture is one person poking someone else’s hand and they feel it. In the frontal lobe section I
drew happy and frowning faces and also I drew a face seeing and smelling something that they
are remembering was a good meal to them. I drew these because this is where we retrieve
memories about sight, sounds, and smells, and also because this part of the brain is involved in
emotional states like being happy or sad. (Nevid, 2009).
Our temporal lobe is below and behind the frontal lobe. In the part of the temporal lobe
I drew an ear. This was what I drew because this is where we produce the experience of hearing
everything we do. (Nevid, 2009).
The corpus callosum connects and forms a pathway between the hemispheres of our
brains. This is how the hemispheres communicate and share information. I drew a picture of
two people on a path waving hi to represent the pathway of communication and also a picture
of two people with cans and strings attached to the cans to communicate.
The human brain has many parts. We understand quite a bit but of course we are still
learning about it. The Cerebral cortex is where the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, and occipital lobe
are. This area is where we have sensory for touch, sight, happiness, sadness, and retrieving
things from our memories. The corpus callosum is the pathway of communication for our brain
hemispheres. Our thalamus has sensory for hearing, sight, touch and taste, it also acts as a relay
station. The limbic system has parts of the thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus and the
amygdala. The hypothalamus takes care of aggression, hunger, thirst, and temperature. The
amygdala is where we our sensory for fear come from. The basal ganglia are where regulation
of movement happens. Our Pons regulates sleep, wakefulness and communication of the
bottom of the brain to the top. Our reticular formation is where our alertness and arousal
happened. The medulla is where respiration, sneezing, coughing, and heart rate are being
regulated. The cerebellum is where our balance and coordination is and we need to take care
that our cerebellum doesn’t get hurt because that would affect the use of our arms and legs.
Drawing the pictures for this assignment was fun because you had to think of what to
draw for each thing that that part of the brain took care of. Sometimes it was harder for
different things. The only things that I really knew before doing this paper was that the occipital
lobe takes care of sight and I knew a lot about the cerebellum. I knew that the cerebellum takes
care of balance and coordination but I also knew that it affects the ability to move your body if
it is damaged or something is wrong with it. The rest of the parts of the brain I had learned in
high school but I did not remember it.
Works Cited
Nevid, J. S. (2009). Psychology Concepts and Applications. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.