Brains
Yes, I know there are some people who don’t appear to have one, but we all do, and what wonderful pieces of natural engineering they are!
All day and night, the brain does so much—so much you probably aren’t aware of beyond the conscious thinking and feeling you do in a day. At night, it does so much housekeeping to keep itself and the body functioning normally. We may be asleep, but our brains certainly are not!
There are several distinct parts of the brain.
And although all parts work in unison to control our bodies and define who we are, each part of the brain has specific functions.
The cerebellum, together with the brain stem— the top of the spinal cord—forms the hindbrain, the primaeval part of our brains. The brainstem controls all vital automatic functions such as breathing, heart rate and temperature. The cerebellum is involved in learned movements such as playing a musical instrument or a sport.
The midbrain is a small top part of the spinal cord that controls some reflex actions as well as some voluntary movements such as eye movements.
The frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal lobes together form the cerebrum, the biggest part of the forebrain, which is split into two hemispheres. These hemispheres communicate with each other through the corpus callosum, which is a thick band of nerve fibres at the base of the deep fissure dividing the two halves. Although the two hemispheres appear to be mirror images of each other, they have different functions. For instance, the ability to form words seems to lie primarily in the left hemisphere, while the right hemisphere seems to control many abstract reasoning skills.
But both halves also cooperate in many areas of brain function, and everyone uses both sides of their brain, whatever their personality type may be.
For some unknown reason, nearly all of the signals from the brain to the body and back again cross over on their way to and from the brain. This means that the right cerebral hemisphere primarily controls the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere primarily controls the right side. When one side of the brain is damaged, the opposite side of the body is affected. For example, a stroke in the right hemisphere of the brain can leave the left arm and leg paralysed.
The brain and the spinal cord form what is called the central nervous system.
The part of the brain that controls vision is right at the back of the brain, so the optic nerve has to pass all the way through the brain carrying info from the eyes.
Most of the brain and the rest of the central nervous system are made up of nerve cells called neurons, which send electrical impulses down channels called axons, which can be short if they are simply transmitting electrical impulses to another part of the brain or very long if they are sending those down the spinal cord to a distant part of the body.
Axons are insulated by a fatty covering called myelin. This helps electrical impulses travel faster and better down the axons. Multiple sclerosis is a terrible condition in which the autoimmune system mistakenly attacks the myelin sheaths in the brain and spinal cord, causing it to become inflamed. This can cause the electrical impulses to slow down, become jumbled, travel the wrong way, or even stop completely.
The messages contained in the electrical impulses are transferred chemically between the transmitting nerve cell and the receiving cell by synapses.
So you can see what a complex structure we have inside our skulls.
If it becomes damaged in any way, by accident or something medical such as a brain bleed, then it can change not only how our bodies work but also affect our memory and personality.
So look after your brain!
Get enough sleep—too little sleep can have serious physical, mental and emotional problems—and remember to give it a bit of a workout every day. Just sitting in front of a TV is not very stimulating for it!
Today, let’s put our thinking caps on, express our personalities, and make some memories with all things brainy in music, pics, memes or gifs!
