The Brain: Basic Systems (outline 2)
I've already outlined the brain systems that I learned from my psychology classes, but I'd also like to describe another popular way to outline the brain. This also breaks the brain down into three basic systems: the hindbrain, midbrain and forebrain.
The Hindbrain:
This is the "oldest" part of the brain evolutionary wise, and is located at the top of your spinal chord. This system controls some of our most basic functions such as breathing, digestion, muscle coordination, and maintaining balance. Structures in this brain system include (but are not limited to)
The Midbrain:
Between the midbrain and the hindbrain, the brainstem is created, which is in control of all the basic survival functions mentioned above. While the hindbrain deals largely with controlling physical survival mechanisms, the midbrain specializes in understanding sensory input from the five basic senses. It also helps to register arousal. By arousal, I do not necessarily mean sexual arousal, but more of an awareness and alertness. The midbrain also serves to connect the hindbrain to the forebrain. Basic midbrain structures include:
The Forebrain:
This part of the brain contains most all of the higher brain functions that are the most recently evolved. These include fine motor functioning and thought processing, raw emotion necessary to survival (fear, aggression, jealousy, arousal), complex emotion, as well as relaying sensory information to other parts of the brain. The forebrain structures include:
The cerebrum and cerebral cortex (which includes the frontal, temporal, occipital, and parietal lobes of the brain)
This is just a basic run down of the hindbrain, midbrain and forebrain organizational structure. As you can see, most of the basic brain structures are still accounted for in this outline, but it groups the entire limbic system and cerebrum to the same area of the brain. Other versions of this outline will divide the brain into more areas within the basic division, but I wanted to try and use terms found in my previous outline. I'm not as comfortable with this method of division, but I hope you enjoyed this alternate division system.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.