Forebrain:
The forebrain is the cerebrum and diencephalon. The cerebrum is responsible for personality, logic, and a lot of higher order thinking. It is split into lobes which have semidistinct functions.
The lobes are:
- Frontal
- Temporal
- Parietal
- Occipital
- and insular
The cerebrum also contains the basal nuclei which are neuron cell bodies that are deep in the cerebrum, not cortical like most of grey matter.
The basal nuclei have 3 regions, the caudate nucleus, the putamen and the globus pallidus.
the lenticular nucleus is a name referring to the putamen and globus pallidus and the striatum is a name referring to the caudate nucleus and the putamen.
The origin of these names comes from the appearance and proximity, which should be easier to understand in the labs.
The function of the basal nuclei are to inhibit unwanted actions, amongst others.
The cerebrum has 2 hemispheres and a structure called the corpus callosum, which is a bundle of commissural fibres which connects the 2 hemispheres.
The diencephalon is a distinct region to the cerebellum and contains the thalamus, hypothalamus epithalamus, and subthalamus. The diencephalon is considered the “gateway” to the cerebrum and all signalling to and from the cerebrum must pass through here.
There is some attention drawn to the arrangement of the diencephalon and basal nuclei
Forebrain features and functions of each lobe
The cerebrum has many different areas, with each having a specific area which it does well
- Brocas area, made of opercular and triangular gyri Deals with spoken speech
- Prefrontal cortex This deals with intellect complex learning, cognition, recall anbd personality. it is heavily dependant on social environment. damage can result in mental and personality disorders
- Supramarginal gyrus This deals with tactile sensory data and in involved with spacial perception and limb spacial awareness
- Primary visual cortex This is the gyri forming the walls of the the calcarine sulcus.
- Visual association area
- uncus
- Amygdala
- Wernickes area deals with listening to communications
- primary auditory cortex
- right hippo campus - spatial representation.
- Insular lobe Function is unknown. visceral sensation effected as well as general sensory and mtoro function. A case study apparently found the left insular lobe was involved in the normal emotional processing of music.
- pineal gland
- thalamus
- hypothalamus