In this video, we are going to be going over the cerebral cortex, which is basically the outer layer of the cerebrum. If you have ever just looked at the surface of the brain, that is the cerebral cortex, and, as I am sure you have noticed, it tends to have pretty prominent grooves and ridges that give it a very wrinkled appearance. There are actually 2 specific features that give it its very distinct look. The first of those are gyri, the singular of this being gyrus. Gyri are basically the elevated ridges of tissue on the surface of the brain. We have gyri, and we also have features called sulci, the singular of this being sulcus. These are basically little shallow grooves of tissue that separate the gyri.
So, if we were to take a little chunk of our cerebral cortex and kind of zoom in on it, it would look a bit like this, and we can see along the top we have these little bumps or ridges. Each of those bumps would be a gyrus. And then we can see these little shallow grooves that separate our gyri, and each of those grooves would be a sulcus. Gyri and sulci are really important because our brains are really big, and folding and convoluting the brain allows us to maintain a pretty large surface area while having our brain still fit inside our relatively smaller human skulls. So, it is pretty cool how that works.
Now, the cerebral cortex is basically divided into 4 lobes, and we have divided these lobes based on their function. We are actually going to go over some specific regions in these lobes in more detail in our next video, and that will make some of these functions make a little bit more sense. So, for this video, just focus on getting a sense of where each of these lobes is, what the lobes are called, and a general idea of their function. Do not worry too much about memorizing all of this stuff yet. We are going to begin with the frontal lobe, which we have depicted here in pink, and it is right in the front of the brain.
The frontal lobe is important for things like conscious thought, your awareness of what is going on around you. It is also really important for complex cognitions as well as things like voluntary movement and speech. Again, we are going to go over specific regions that cover a lot of these functions in our next video. That is our frontal lobe, right in the front. Next up, we have our temporal lobe, and the temporal lobe is found literally right near the temple, so it is kind of right near your ears.
It makes sense that it's near your ears because the temporal lobe is important for things like auditory processing, language comprehension, as well as memory. Moving up toward the top, kind of like the top back of the brain, we have this region in blue, and that is the parietal lobe. The parietal lobe is important for sensations, specifically like touch sensations such as temperature, pressure, pain, proprioception, knowing where your body is in space, and just general spatial awareness. That is happening on the top there in the parietal lobe. And then finally, way in the back, we have the occipital lobe, and the occipital lobe is devoted mainly to vision.
I always remember that because I think it is interesting and almost ironic how the part of our brain that is responsible for seeing is as far away from our eyes as humanly possible. It is just kind of interesting how that worked out. And those of you who are interested in anatomy may have noticed that the lobes of the brain are actually named after the cranial bone that they are underneath. So, that is a nice easy way to memorize the lobes if you know anything about anatomy. Alright, and as I mentioned, we are going to go over some specific regions in those lobes in our next video, so I will see you guys there.
Bye-bye.