brain

Occipital Lobe

At the back of the head. The centre of our visual perception system. Responsible for processing visual information from the eyes. They are not particularly vulnerable to injury because of their location at the back of the brain, although any significant trauma to the brain could produce subtle changes to our visual-perceptual system.

Motor Cortex

Controls muscle movement. In the frontal lobe.

Broca's Area

Controls production of speech. In the left side of the frontal lobe.

Wernicke's Area

Controls the comprehension of language. In the temporal lobe.

Temporal Lobe

Either side of the head above the ears. Associated with memory skills. Left temporal damage results in impaired memory for verbal material. Right side damage results in recall of non-verbal material, such as music and drawings. Language can also be effected by temporal lobe damage.

Left Hemisphere

Left side of the brain. Responsible for verbal/language production and analytical functions. Controls movement on the right side of body, receives sensations from the right side of the body. Cognitive functions: language (reading, writing), mathematics, logic, analytical skills.

Somatosensory Cortex

Main sensory receptive area for the sense of touch. In the parietal lobe.

Frontal Lobe

Right behind the forehead. Emotional control centre and home to our personality. The left frontal lobe is involved in controlling language related movement. The right frontal lobe plays a role in non-verbal abilities. Carries out higher mental processes such as thinking, decision making, and planning.

Right Hemisphere

Right side of the brain. Controls the movement and receives the sensations from the left side of the body. Dominates non-verbal functions such as spatial abilities. Responsible for creativity and recognising faces, expressing emotions, and reading emotions. Cognitive functions: spatial abilities, musical abilities and appreciation, art appreciation and imagination.

Broca's Aphasia

Speech consists of very short sentences. Made up of mainly verbs and nouns. Words such as "to" and "the" are missed out. Grammatical endings such as "ing" left off.

Wernicke's Aphasia

Superficially fluent, grammatical speech but an inability to use or understand more than the most basic nouns and verbs. Produces rapid, clearly spoken words but what they say is generally meaningless.

Brain Stem

The brain stem plays a vital role in basic attention, arousal, and consciousness. All information to and from our body passes through the brain stem on the way to or from the brain. Functions include breathing, heart rate, swallowing, reflexes to seeing and hearing (startle response), controlling sweating, blood pressure, digestion, temperature (autonomic nervous system), affects level of alertness, ability to sleep and sense of balance (vestibular function). Located deep in brain, underneath cerebellum, connects to spinal cord.

Cerebellum

The cerebellum is involved in the co-ordination of voluntary movement, balance and muscle tone. It is relatively well protected from trauma compared to the frontal and temporal lobes and brain stem. Located just above the brain stem and toward the back of the brain at the base of the skull.

Cerebral Cortex

The cerebral cortex is a 3mm thick layer which is the wrinkled outer layer of the brain. There are four lobes of the cortex: Frontal Lobe, Occipital Lobe, Temporal Lobe and Parietal Lobe.

Parietal Lobe

Top of he head towards the back. Processes/ integrates sensory information that is associated with touch, temperature and pressure. Its function also involves creation, perception of the spatially around us, speech and the ability to read and logical work. This is the part of the brain where if suffered from trauma will cause disorders such as aphasia.