How the Brain Works: The Facts Visually Explained (How Things Work)

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In honor of Brain Awareness Week, try out this easy experiment from How Your Brain Works to gain a better understanding of the brain’s reaction time:

The pia mater is a thin membrane that hugs the surface of the brain and follows its contours. The pia mater is rich with veins and arteries. The cerebrum (front of brain) comprises gray matter (the cerebral cortex) and white matter at its center. The largest part of the brain, the cerebrum initiates and coordinates movement and regulates temperature. Other areas of the cerebrum enable speech, judgment, thinking and reasoning, problem-solving, emotions and learning. Other functions relate to vision, hearing, touch and other senses. Cerebral CortexAre men’s and women’s brains really different? Why are teenagers impulsive and rebellious? And will it soon be possible to link our brains together via the Cloud? Cranial nerve 5: The trigeminal nerve is the largest and most complex of the cranial nerves, with both sensory and motor function. It originates from the pons and conveys sensation from the scalp, teeth, jaw, sinuses, parts of the mouth and face to the brain, allows the function of chewing muscles, and much more. The hypothalamus is located above the pituitary gland and sends it chemical messages that control its function. It regulates body temperature, synchronizes sleep patterns, controls hunger and thirst and also plays a role in some aspects of memory and emotion. Amygdala Cortex is Latin for “bark,” and describes the outer gray matter covering of the cerebrum. The cortex has a large surface area due to its folds, and comprises about half of the brain’s weight. Each brain hemisphere (parts of the cerebrum) has four sections, called lobes: frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital. Each lobe controls specific functions.

MIT Press Direct is a distinctive collection of influential MIT Press books curated for scholars and libraries worldwide.Cranial nerve 10: The vagus nerve allows sensation around the ear and the digestive system and controls motor activity in the heart, throat and digestive system.

Pons. The pons is the origin for four of the 12 cranial nerves, which enable a range of activities such as tear production, chewing, blinking, focusing vision, balance, hearing and facial expression. Named for the Latin word for “bridge,” the pons is the connection between the midbrain and the medulla.

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Cranial nerve 9: The glossopharyngeal nerve allows taste, ear and throat movement, and has many more functions. From the mechanics to the psychological each topic weaves its way into an overall picture of just how complex and amazing this mass of gray matter that sits on top of us is. Try as we might, and we do, we are trying to replicate the brain with our computer technology. In fact we seem to be hard at work trying to make our phones one day replace that organ. You see this everyday with folks driving around more occupied with it then the road. Yet we are still way, way away from duplicating this most superior biological machine. We will no doubt make great strides in the decades ahead but will we ever replicate it completely, doubtful. And we certainly should ask do we really want that. The smallest branches (capillaries) of the arteries in the brain supply the brain cells with oxygen and nutrients from the blood – but they do not let other substances pass as easily as similar capillaries in the rest of the body do. The medical term for this phenomenon is the “blood-brain barrier.” It can protect the delicate brain from toxic substances in the blood, for example. Have you ever asked yourself why you can't remember anything from before the age of three, why people experience deja vu, or how a bundle of cells in our heads can produce the remarkable phenomenon that is human consciousness? Drawing on the latest neuroscience research, this visual guide makes the hidden workings of the human brain simple to understand.