Parts of the Brain

1. Frontal Lobe-The frontal lobes are considered our emotional control center and home to our personality. The frontal lobes are involved in motor function, problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language, initiation, judgment, impulse control, and social and sexual behavior. The frontal lobes are extremely vulnerable to injury due to their location at the front of the cranium.

Parietal Lobe-It is positioned above the occipital lobe and behind the frontal lobe. The parietal lobes can be divided into two functional regions. One involves sensation and perception and the other is concerned with integrating sensory input, primarily with the visual system.

Occipital Lobe-The occipital lobes are the center of our visual perception system. They are not particularly vulnerable to injury because of their location at the back of the brain, although any significant trauma to the brain could produce subtle changes to our visual-perceptual system

Temporal Lobe- The temporal lobes are involved in the primary organization of sensory input. Language can be affected by temporal lobe damage. The temporal lobe is also involved in emotional response and hearing. The temporal lobes are anterior to the occipital lobes

2. The motor cortex is a region of the cerebral cortex in the brain, which controls the actions of voluntary muscles. Different regions of the motor cortex are responsible for controlling different muscle of the body. The sensory cortex is parallel to the motor cortex and just behind it at the front of the parietal lobes. The sensory cortex allows us to receive information from the skin senses and from the movement of body parts.
3. The cerebral cortex is found in the outer portion of the cerebrum.
4. Plasticity is the brain's capacity for modification, as evident in brain reorganization following damage and in experiments on the effects of experience on brain development. One example would be that the intensive practice of a motor skill involving fine finger movements (e.g. playing the guitar) resulted in an increase in the number of neurons that are devoted to motor control of the fingers. Another example would be that if two neurons are usually active at the same time, then changes may occur to facilitate communication between those two neurons in future.
6. When the corpus callosum is severed, the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere become separated and there can be no communication between the two hemispheres. A patient who suffers from epileptic seizures would benefit from the corpus callosum being severed because the abnormal brain activity will no longer reverberate between both hemispheres.

7. Our group decided to use clay. We used clay because we believed that clay was the best material to mold stuff into and also it was not very expensive.

6. Limbic system includes three parts:

Hypothalamus - The main function of the hypothalamus is homeostasis, or maintaining the body's status quo. Factors such as blood pressure, body temperature, fluid and electrolyte balance, and body weight are held to a precise value

Amygdala - The functions of the amygdala are controlling arousal and controlling autonomic responses associated with fear.

Hippocampus - The functions of the hippocampus is for learning and memory, and for converting short-term memory to more permanent memory.