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Anatomy of the Brain: Part One
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Biopsychology - The Brain
In this course, Mr Kevin Silber (University of Derby) explores the anatomy and function of the human brain. In the first lecture, we look at how the brain is structured. In the second lecture, we think about further brain structures, including the limbic system. In the third lecture, we think about the localisation of different functions in particular areas of the brain. Next, we consider the lateralisation of certain brain processes in the two hemispheres. In the fifth lecture, we look at split-brain research. In the sixth and final lecture, we think about brain plasticity and the recovery of brain function after trauma.
Anatomy of the Brain: Part One
In this lecture, we think about how the human brain is structured, focusing in particular on: (i) the division of the brain into the hindbrain, midbrain and forebrain; (ii) their constituent parts; (iii) the role of the medulla oblongata in controlling vital life functions; (iv) the function of the pons in relaying sensory information and the cerebellum in motor planning; (v) the midbrain and the role of the superior and inferior colliculi in vision and hearing; (vi) the forebrain, an area subdivided into the diencephalon and the telencephalon; (vii) two structures located in the diencephalon; (viii) the function of the thalamus as a sensory relay station and the role of the hypothalamus in maintaining homeostasis.
Hello.
00:00:06My name is Kevin Silver and I'm a senior
00:00:06lecturer in psychology at the University of Darby.
00:00:09And this course is, of course, on the brain and how it functions
00:00:12in this module.
00:00:17I'm going to talk about the brain and what it's constructed of,
00:00:18and some of the functions that those parts of the brain are involved in
00:00:22now. The first thing to note is that the brain can be divided
00:00:27into what we call the central nervous system, which is the brain and the spinal cord,
00:00:31and then the peripheral nervous system, which is all the rest of the nervous system.
00:00:37And there's another course that deals with that rest of
00:00:43the rest of the stuff and the peripheral nervous system.
00:00:45So what we're going to talk about here is the brain
00:00:49and the spinal cord is part of the central nervous system.
00:00:52But for our purposes, it's not as interesting as looking at the brain itself.
00:00:56Now,
00:01:01one of my favourite all time quotes to describe the brain is by Stephen Rose from
00:01:021973 and he describes it as two fistfuls of pink grey tissue shaped like a walnut
00:01:07and something of the consistency of porridge.
00:01:16So what you have inside your head
00:01:19is porridge.
00:01:21Now that porridge is made up of over 100 billion neurons.
00:01:23These are the cells that make the brain
00:01:29work the ways in which the brain actually functions
00:01:32and those billions of neurons are structured into hundreds of structures.
00:01:37So it's not possible in a course like this to describe all of them.
00:01:44So I'm going to pick the way in which the brain is structured in.
00:01:49It's the main ways in which we would divide the brain up and talk to
00:01:53you a little bit about some of those interesting structures and what they do.
00:01:57So we're going to start with the part of the brain.
00:02:03Just as you leave the spinal cord and come into the brain
00:02:05is an area of the brain that we referred to as the hind brain,
00:02:08and this is in evolutionary terms, the oldest part of the brain.
00:02:11The hind brain is made up of three distinctive structures,
00:02:16and these are the medulla oblong gotta often just referred to as the medulla,
00:02:21the ponds
00:02:27and the cerebellum.
00:02:29So what are these three and what do they do?
00:02:31Well,
00:02:33the medulla oblong gotta is a structure that's involved in
00:02:34many of the vital functions that keep us alive.
00:02:38So you don't have to concentrate on breathing or making your heart work.
00:02:42The medulla oblong gotta does all that for you.
00:02:47So it controls are breathing and our heart rate and make sure that
00:02:50they carry on as normal and change in circumstances when they need to.
00:02:55But it is more than this. There are also some other functions that are vital to us
00:03:02that we sort of take for granted,
00:03:06but that happen automatically under the control of the medulla oblong Gotta.
00:03:08So, for example, coughing and sneezing are controlled by these
00:03:12sneezing and coughing. We need to do when there are things obstructing our airways.
00:03:16Also gagging another one.
00:03:22If you want to stick two fingers down your throat, you would start to gag.
00:03:24And the medulla oblong gotta would be a response to the blockage of the of the tubes.
00:03:28So the medulla concentrates on these many more. But I will stop with these
00:03:34of these vital functions.
00:03:40Now the next part the ponds a little bit
00:03:43to the side of the medulla oblong gotten slightly higher into the brain
00:03:46well, the word ponds means bridge in Latin,
00:03:52and this provides a sort of bridge and relay for all of the
00:03:55sensory information that's coming into the brain so it passes through the ponds
00:03:59and then gets directed to where it needs to go for further processing.
00:04:04That's really all the ponds does.
00:04:08But you can see that it's a pretty vital function,
00:04:10because if things aren't directed to the right places,
00:04:12then those functional elements won't happen properly.
00:04:15And the cerebellum
00:04:19is
00:04:21a little brain in itself, because when you cut it open,
00:04:22it sort of looks a bit like a brain.
00:04:25And it has a cauliflower like appearance,
00:04:27and this is a motor structure. So this is involved in movement control
00:04:30and it's involved in the motor planning.
00:04:35So it controls the various things, not just voluntary motion,
00:04:39but things like when we're doing something.
00:04:43And the monitoring that make sure that our movements
00:04:47are correct is partly also controlled by the cerebellum,
00:04:50and there's also a part of the cerebellum that controls balance as well.
00:04:54But you can see how balance is part of that whole movement Planning control.
00:04:58If you start to fall over,
00:05:03you need to move your arms or legs to write yourself and correct yourself.
00:05:04So that's the hind brain
00:05:10coming a little bit further up. We have an area called the mid Brain.
00:05:12Now the midbrain in human beings especially, doesn't play an awfully big function.
00:05:15It has a number of structures, but two are just worth a small note.
00:05:21These are the curriculum.
00:05:27There are the superior curriculum,
00:05:29which are involved in vision in our ability to see
00:05:30and the inferior correctly which are involved in auditory functioning.
00:05:35So our ability to hear,
00:05:40but they don't play a huge. As I said, they don't play a huge role in humans,
00:05:43but where they do come into their own
00:05:47is in a collection of structures that we refer to as the brain stem.
00:05:49The brain stem
00:05:54is the medulla oblong gotta and the ponds
00:05:55from the hind brain that I've already talked about
00:05:58and the midbrain added in,
00:06:00and why this is interesting is because it
00:06:02contains some structural elements that are a little bit
00:06:05They're not like sort of structures in the same
00:06:08way that the medulla and the ponds are,
00:06:10but their collections of neurons that have very specific functions So,
00:06:12for example, the ascending,
00:06:17reticulated activating system rather a mouthful of words but nevertheless,
00:06:19is an area that's involved in arousal and attentional processes.
00:06:25So it's an important area for arousal,
00:06:30and the brain stem contains all of the vital elements
00:06:34in total of the brain in its sort of basic living function.
00:06:38So if the brain stem is severely damaged,
00:06:42it would be difficult for a person to maintain life.
00:06:46Okay, so once we come up through the brain stem to the hind brain and the midbrain,
00:06:51we enter the part of the brain that really captures everything,
00:06:56especially for us as humans, but for mammals in general,
00:07:01and we refer to this as the forebrain.
00:07:04Now the forebrain is pretty much the rest of the brain,
00:07:07and when you look at a brain and you look at the size of the brain,
00:07:09almost all of the important parts for us our four brain functions
00:07:13and the forebrain
00:07:18is divided into two areas. It's divided into an area called the Diane Calphalon
00:07:19and an area called the T Len Kaplan,
00:07:26as well as that.
00:07:28If you look at a brain,
00:07:29then you will see that it has two halves to it and we call these hemispheres.
00:07:30And so there is a Left Hemisphere and a right hemisphere,
00:07:35and these are joined together by a band of fibres that run through the middle,
00:07:39connecting the two sides called the Corpus callosum.
00:07:44And we'll hear more about the corpus callosum
00:07:48in one of the later modules.
00:07:51The other thing to notice about therefore brain,
00:07:53is that it appears wrinkled Inhumans, anyway on its surface.
00:07:55Now
00:08:01those wrinkles are folds because that way we increase the surface area of the brain.
00:08:02And again I'll talk more about those folds and there and
00:08:10what their function is when we do a later model.
00:08:13In fact, the next module.
00:08:17I just wanted to point out the folds because if you
00:08:19were to look at the surface of a rat brain,
00:08:22you would find that it's perfectly flat.
00:08:24And this is an indication of the increased capabilities
00:08:26that we have as humans over the capabilities of a rat.
00:08:30So as I mentioned, there are these two areas that dying careful on
00:08:35and the TV and careful on,
00:08:39I'll talk about the tea and careful on in the next module.
00:08:40But for now, let's concentrate on the dying Calphalon.
00:08:43Diane, careful on, has a number of structures, as all parts of the brain do,
00:08:48but there are two that are really worth noting for our purposes.
00:08:51These are the thalamus and hypothalamus.
00:08:56Now the thalamus is a sensory relay structure so similar to the ponds,
00:08:59but the ponds directs
00:09:05information to where it needs to go.
00:09:07The thalamus plays some role in also
00:09:09processing this information in a small way before
00:09:12sending it on to other parts of the brain that need to have the information.
00:09:16And it is a critical relay station,
00:09:22and he's involved in some other functions as well.
00:09:25For example, it's involved in areas like memory and other areas of cognition,
00:09:28and the other is the hypothalamus.
00:09:35The hypothalamus takes the idea of the medulla one step further.
00:09:37Remember, the medulla was about vital functions,
00:09:41and the hypothalamus is involved in a process that we referred to as homeless Stasis
00:09:44and the hypothalamus has a role in things like arousal
00:09:50in things like hunger
00:09:56and thirst,
00:09:58and also in sexual and reproductive behaviour to
00:09:59so that's the dying.
00:10:03Careful on in the next module will take a look at
00:10:05the rest of the forebrain and look at the T lane.
00:10:08Careful on
00:10:11
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Silber, K. (2019, September 27). Biopsychology - The Brain - Anatomy of the Brain: Part One [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/the-brain/plasticity-and-functional-recovery
MLA style
Silber, K. "Biopsychology - The Brain – Anatomy of the Brain: Part One." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 27 Sep 2019, https://massolit.io/courses/the-brain/plasticity-and-functional-recovery