Parts of the Brain Flashcards
Cerebrum
Responsible for all reasoning, planning, memory, and sensory processing. All conscious thought originates here.
Corpus callosum
A broad band of nerve fibers that connect the left and right cerebral hemispheres.
Frontal lobes
Responsible for many roles in behavior and personality, such as planning, initiated movements, social and emotional processing, and attention, as well as roles in memory retrieval and storage.
Motor cortex
Responsible for the voluntary control of your skeletal muscles—the muscles we can move and control.
Olfactory bulbs/tracts
Receive information about smells from the nose and send it to the brain.
Parietal lobes
Responsible for sensing touch, spatial processing, language, and memory.
Sensory cortex
Responsible for sensing touch, pressure, vibration, pain, temperature, and taste.
Occipital lobes
Responsible for visual perception and involved in some forms of visual, short-term memory.
Visual cortex
Responsible for the conscious perception of visual input.
Optic nerves and chiasm
Receive visual stimuli from the eyes and relay this information to the visual cortex in the occipital lobe.
Temporal lobes
Responsible for processing smell and sound, as well as the ability to recognize and understand words and language. They are also involved in visual memory.
Auditory cortex
Responsible for the conscious perception of sound.
Cerebellum
Responsible for balance, movement, and coordination.
Brain stem
The point where the spinal cord connects with the brain. The brain stem takes in, sends out, and coordinates all of the brain’s messages. It controls the body’s vital functions, such as heartbeat, breathing, swallowing, and digestion.
Thalamus
Carries messages from the sensory organs, like the eyes, ears, nose, and fingers, to the cerebrum.
