Alright. So here we have that summary table that we promised. This contains all of the important terminology for you to remember from this chapter. I am going to kind of run through this with you in this video but of course feel free to use this as a study tool, on your own time. Alright, so as a reminder when we're thinking about like the major organization of the brain the most evolutionarily complex part of the brain is the forebrain and the forebrain contains the cerebrum.
This is just kind of the largest most top portion of the brain and this is going to be responsible for our most, again, evolutionarily complex functions, things like logic, rational thought, working memory, etc. Now our cerebrum is divided into 2 hemispheres and those hemispheres are connected by our corpus callosum, that kind of bridge of fibers, right? Now when we're thinking about the forebrain we can think cortical, or what's on the surface, or we can think it's subcortical, what's under the surface, right? When we're thinking about the cortical forebrain we divide that into 4 major lobes. So we have our frontal lobe and the frontal lobe is going to contain the primary motor cortex.
Motor, of course, refers to movement, so that region is doing voluntary movement. It contains our prefrontal cortex which is responsible for our most complex cognitions, again, those executive functions, inhibitory control, logic, a lot of integration of emotion and memory that helps make you you. Right? We also have Broca's area. Remember, Broca's area is right near that motor cortex, and so this region is important for speech production.
We can think of how Broca's build speech or how Broca's area helps you with la boca, or the movement of the mouth. Right? We also have our temporal lobe. So our temporal lobe is going to be kind of that region right near your temple or near your ears. So this will contain our primary auditory cortex.
Auditory, of course, just means hearing and that is located right near your ears, and it also contains Wernicke's area, which is very important for language comprehension. Remember, Wernicke's tells you what you just heard and again it's quite intuitive because this region is right near your ears. Right? We also have the parietal lobe, which contains our primary somatosensory cortex, very important for our sensations of like touch, as well as internal sensations like proprioception, knowing where we are in space. Of course, that has the word sensory right in there so that one's kind of easy to remember.
And then we have our occipital lobe in the back and that we know is just handling vision, so of course it contains our primary visual cortex. Now when we are getting subcortical, kind of below the surface of the forebrain, we have a couple important structures. Remember, we have our basal ganglia and the basal ganglia helps to regulate movement. So remember, basal begins movement. We can also think of the basal ganglia as kind of a bridge between our primary motor cortex and our spinal cord.
Right? So the primary motor cortex is sending those kind of more conscious thoughts, you know, I need to kick this ball. Right? And then the basal ganglia would help with kind of the regulation of that movement, starting the movement, stopping the movement, things like that. Next up we have the thalamus and, as we remember, the thalamus is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Right? So this is our sensory relay station. You can think of it as kind of like our little sensory switch board kind of routing all those signals where they need to go. It's also going to be important for consciousness and sleep. We also have our limbic system.
Our limbic system is comprised of 3 major structures. So our hypothalamus, which basically regulates homeostasis, particularly things involved in your survival. Think of those 4 f's. Remember feeding, fighting, fleeing, and sexual function. Right?
You can also remember how our hypothalamus helps prevent hypothermia. Things like temperature regulation, kind of motivating you to keep your body in homeostasis. Right? We have our amygdala, very important for emotion, particularly fear. Some people like to use the memory tool.
You know, Amy is emotional just kind of thinking, you know, just kind of breaking down the word amygdala a little bit and just kind of thinking of how Amy is emotional. We also have the hippocampus here which is very important for memory formation. We need our functioning hippocampus to help us develop new memories. You can remember that by thinking about how you definitely remember seeing a hippo on campus, right? So those are some important subcortical or brain structures.
Now we also have the midbrain located literally kind of in the middle of our brain and again kind of in the middle of our hierarchy of evolutionarily complex to simple functions. We don't have to know much about the midbrain at this level, but do be aware that it's important for movement and orientation just kind of generally. You can kind of think of mid and, like, the m in movement. And then finally, we have our hindbrain, last but certainly not least. This is gonna be responsible for kind of our most evolutionarily simple functions, but they're not really simple.
Right? This is super important stuff. So we have structures like the pons. The pons is going to be important for our sleep wake cycle, particularly the sleep side of things helping you move through stages of sleep. Remember bridge means, or pons means bridge in Latin, so you can kind of think about how the pons, being the highest forebrain structure kind of bridges the forebrain and the hindbrain.
So our pons is over here in yellow, remember. So as we have commands coming down, they'll go to the pons first and then go to other parts of the hindbrain, and as things are coming up they'll kind of be in the pons and then they'll go up to the forebrain. Next we have our medulla. Remember that's right below our pons, it's here in purple, and the medulla is important for autonomic functions, things like breathing and reflexes. I have heard the memory tool that kind of think about Medusa.
Medulla and Medusa obviously sound quite similar, and if you know Medusa, she's gonna turn you into stone and stop your breathing. Right? So you can kind of think about that. We also have the reticular formation, this green structure that kind of goes through the pons and the medulla, and you can always think of it as kind of like a little helper for the pons and the medulla. So if you know the functions of those structures, the reticular formation is kind of just doing those same things.
So it's helping regulate some autonomic functions like breathing. It's also gonna help with that sleep wake cycle, but it's gonna help a little bit more on the wake side of things. The pons has the sleep side handled where the reticular formation does some of that wake side stuff kind of arousal and attention. And then finally, we have our cerebellum here in the back. Cerebellum means tiny brain, literally looks like a tiny little brain back there, which is important for things like coordination, balance, and kind of precise motor control.
You can think about those kind of c's going together. Cerebellum coordinates movement. But when we're thinking about movement, we do have quite a few structures. Remember, up here in kind of our more complex regions we have our primary motor cortex that's handling voluntary movement, things that you're maybe thinking about consciously that you want to enact, and then we have our basal ganglia which will kind of regulate the movement, kind of the starting and stopping of that movement. It'll inhibit unnecessary movement, and then our cerebellum is going to kind of handle the precision, and coordination of that movement there.
Alright. So that is our big old summary of all of those brain structures. Great job with this, guys. You did amazing work in this chapter, and I will see you in our next video. Bye bye.
