Anatomy Radio

The brain itself, is made up of loads of different regions, and we are going to take a look at the different functions, that each of them perform. We'll also discuss how anatomists and other scientists study the brain, the first thing to say, is that the brain and spinal cord together, make up what is called the central nervous system, but apart from simple reflexes, it's the brain that makes all the important decisions, so let's focus just on the brain today, now this image here, is actually a cross section of the brain, as though it's been sliced down the middle the way you cut across an apple, so that we can see inside, the big wrinkly band all around the top, is called the cerebral cortex, or cerebrum, and this is the part that's responsible for some of the things we value most, like consciousness intelligence, memory and language, as well as our senses like vision and hearing, the cerebral cortex is actually split into two halves, which we call hemispheres. Quite interestingly or oddly as you may see it, the left hemisphere of the brain actually controls the muscles on the right side of our body, and the right hemisphere of the brain controls those muscles on your left side. That means a damage to the left side of your brain may cause the right side of your body to paralyse! and vise versa. Then at the back of the brain, we have the cerebellum which is responsible for controlling our balance and muscle coordination in other words, it basically makes sure that we can sit up straight and walk without falling over. In the middle is the part of our brain called the hypothalamus, which is involved in regulating things like our body temperature, and sending signals to the pituitary gland commonly called the master gland. Finally at the bottom, connecting the brain to the spinal cord, is the brain stem, and within this brain stem is the medulla or Medulla oblongata as you usually call it back then in secondary school. The Medulla controls our unconscious activities that are crucial for our survival, like breathing and the beating of our heart. Before we call it a day, let's see how scientists study your brain, to learn which part of your brain is responsible for what role in your life. One way of doing this, is to study people with brain damage, for example if somebody has a stroke, in which one tiny part of their brain is damaged, and it leads to them not being able to hear anymore, then we can make a pretty good guess that that region, was responsible for hearing in some way, another technique is to electrically stimulate different parts of the brain, using a tiny electrode and see if anything happens, for example if we zap this part of the brain, it would result in muscle contraction, and the person might move an arm or a leg, whereas if we stimulate this region, it might cause the person's vision to become funny because this is the part of the brain involved with a vision. A less invasive technique, and the one most used today to study the brain is to scan the brain, this can involve a bunch of different forms of scanning techniques. For instance, if you were to listen to music while in an MRI machine, then, you'd see a different pattern of activity in the brain. The brain is one of the enigmas of the human body, with so much to learn about it despite so much known of it by scientists and neuroanatomist. You have just used your brain to learn about your brain! Let's stop here so that your brain can 'take a breath of fresh air!' Hope you learnt something. Tell your friends, siblings, children about Anatomy Radio, and I'll see you again pretty soon. Wait! Don't forgot to follow Anatomy Radio and share this information. Thank You!