My Brain Map

To complete this assignment, I used a website called Your Brain Map ( Brain Map) where I got  to observe the different parts of the brain and their different functions/interesting facts.

An interactive infographic by Open Colleges

Cerebral Cortex

1. What do the frontal lobes do?

The frontal lobe controls your personality, but it's also where problem solving, memory, judgement, and impulse control occur. The frontal lobe executes your behavior. The left side of the lobe deals with "language based" while the right side of the brain involves processes that don't require language.

1. What is the relationship between selective attention and learning?

Selective Attention shows that your intelligence levels depend on how selective you are when remembering information. It makes your working memory capacity greater as it allows you to prioritize important, organ used information above unimportant, little used information. Many people think that 'more facts' in your brain equals 'more intelligence' but this is not the case. It is more about how you control the spotlight of your intelligence. 

1. What is the last part of your brain to develop and what can you do to prevent it from deteriorating? 

The frontal lobe is the last part of your brain to develop and it will be the first to deteriorate with age. There are exercises you can do to prevent your frontal lobe from deteriorating.

1. What does the neo cortex do?

The neo cortex helps you to navigate your body. It governs your senses, spatial awareness, and motor skills.

1. What is the role of the pre frontal cortex?

The pre frontal cortex controls your personality, including how you behave in social situations. It organizes your thought and actions to match cohesively with your internal goals. 

1. What do we know about the pre frontal cortex’s relationship with multitasking?

The prefrontal cortex has a "central bottleneck" which is there to prevent you from doing more than two major things at one time. Despite what you are often told, multitasking does not really exist as your brain is really just jumping from one last to another quickly, often meaning that the quality of the tasks you complete is inferior.

1. Which part of the brain is associated with speech and language development?  Give an interesting fact about this region.

Broca's Area is responsible for speech production, language comprehension, interpreting the actions of others and your speech associated gestures. There have been instances where tumors have occurred in people in this part of the brain but they were still able to speak, suggesting that in these cases language skills may have been shifted to other nearby parts of the brain.

1. Which part of your brain is responsible for thinking the following: “Is it hot in here or is it just me?”
2. What does your visual cortex do for you?

The Somatosensory Cortex is responsible for thinking "is it hot in here or is it just me?" 

The Visual Cortex helps differentiate colors and distinguish complex things such as faces. Without this all your friends and teachers would look the same. 

1. State three interesting or significant facts about your occipital lobe.

The Occipital Lobe is your brain's processing center. It collects and categorizes visual data. It also deals with your imagination and allows you to process short and long term memories. This part of the brain allows you to register the contexts of me and you and now and then.

1. What would happen if your temporal lobes were damaged?

Without this part of the brain, you might forget where you parked your car to get to class, or where the bus stops is: you'd ha e to take a map everyday!

1. What is your “fast brain” and what does it do?

I could not find the answer to this question, but I am guessing that it is part of the brain which carries out roles quickly? 

Neuron

1. State 3 things that you could do that would influence your synapses, and have a positive affect on your life and health.

Exercise and a healthy diet provide many benefits for your brain to function. Omega fatty acids help benefit brain function, particularly as these affect the brain's synapses. Eating these fatty acids (ex: fish) can improve the functioning of your synapses. Socializing is also a factor in healthy brain function.

1. What is the relationship between multi-sensory or multi-modal learning and your dendrites?

Dendritic spines are moveable protrusions of the neuron's dendrite. Their lifespan is influenced by your experience which is laid down by your input activity. This means multiple stimulations mean you will have a better memory. If you engage multiple regions of your brain in storing data about a particular subject, there will be more opportunities for your brain to pull up data from multiple sources. This cross referencing of data stored in your brain may convert the new knowledge from something you have memorized to something you have learned. This concept is known as multi modal learning.

1. How does “big picture thinking” and mnemonics affect dendrites and/or learning?

Studies show that you need to use 'big picture thinking' to fully comprehend a subject, and then break the subject down into its relevant parts. Learning should be structured around real problems as this helps put 'you' (the learner) into the context and information being examined. Many people find success when employing mnemonic devices to learn. It is a learning technique where you try to remember a personal, humorous, spatial or relatable information about a topic in order to recall it, rather than focusing on abstract facts.

1. Describe a neurotransmitter that you feel is very important.  Justify your reasoning.

Glutamine plays a key role in how you learn. Glutamate is vital to long term potentiation, a strengthening of the synapses, which is a way that scientists explain the formation of long term memories. Glutamine is essential for our brain functioning to study, particularly as it deals with learning and memory.

Limbic System

1. What does the corpus callosum do?

Corpus Callosum deals with cognitive, motor, and sensory functions between the two hemispheres. Your corpus callous is where you get your oral language skills and your ability to comprehend how language is structured. It is also involved in reading, dealing with the concepts of print, handwriting and the movement of your eyes.

1. What is the relationship between music and the corpus callosum? 

Research has indicated that studying music can help to strengthen the conversation between the two hemispheres of your brain. Musical practice was found to improve the function between the two hands.

1. Why is the thalamus important?

Thalamus is responsible for motor control, sensory information and states of consciousness such as alertness and sleep. It also deals with your memory, your emotions, your consciousness, awareness and attention.

Relate and Review 

Summarize what you learned from this tutorial.  Relate what you learned to your everyday life and how you can make it better.  Use at least 5 of the bolded words from the questions.  5-sentence minimum. You may use the back of this if needed.


This tutorial was really helpful because it helped me learn the limbic system, cerebral cortex, and neurons. The complete functioning of the brain is vital to people's lives. If some parts of the brain aren't working, it is very detrimental and can lead to death of many problems in the future. I found it very interesting that exercise and a healthy diet can improve brain functioning because I did not know that being healthy affected the brain function. This tutorial helped me understand many essential parts of the brain. For example, the Thalamus is responsible for motor control, sensory information and states of consciousness such as alertness and sleep. It also deals with your memory, your emotions, your consciousness, awareness and attention. Your Corpus Callosum deals with cognitive, motor, and sensory functions between the two hemispheres. Your corpus callous is where you get your oral language skills and your ability to comprehend how language is structured. My mom's friend has a damaged temporal lobe, and I previously did not know what this meant. Now I know that without this part of the brain, you might forget where you parked your car to get to class, or where the bus stops is: you'd ha e to take a map everyday! The frontal lobe is also very important because it controls your personality, but it's also where problem solving, memory, judgement, and impulse control occur. The Occipital Lobe is your brain's processing center. It collects and categorizes visual data. The brain is very complex, and this tutorial helped me understand the key roles of each part of the brain. This assignment related to the clay brain because in the clay brain, we made the brain out of clay to understand the anatomy of the brain. In this assignment, we got to understand more about the anatomy but also got to understand the physiology of the brain.