4. Let’s Explore Some of the Parts of The
Brain
Brain Stem
coordinating functions such as:
*heart rate
*breathing
*eating
*sleeping
5. CEREBELLUM
2nd largest region of the brain
Located behind and below the cerebrum
Coordinates movement
Maintains balance and posture
6. LIMBIC SYSTEM
Located deep within the temporal lobe of the
cerebrum
Responsible for:
Regulates emotions, motivations and
movements
7. DIENCEPHALON
Located between the cerebrum and the
midbrain
Consists of thalamus and hypothalamus
Responsible for:
sensory perception
regulation of pituitary gland
8. CEREBRAL CORTEX
*Located over and around most of the brain
*Responsible for thinking, perceiving, producing
and understanding language
*Can be divided into different areas
~ vision ~ hearing ~ movement ~smell
~thinking ~reasoning
9. How Do Scientists Investigate What
Happens in the Human Brain?
• Watching a person’s behavior
• Using various imaging techniques such as CT
scan, MRI or PET scans
• Using animals for research
10. Imaging of the Brain
Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
measures the spatial distribution and
movement of radioisotopes in tissues of living
subjects
14. Information for Question #5
The tasks that the subject performed during each of the PET scans
are as follows:
Set #1- The person is resting
Set #2- The person is listening to music
Set #3- The person is looking at a picture showing both pattern
and color
Set #4- The person is performing a thinking task
Set #5- The person must remember an image to be recalled later
Set #6- The person is hopping up and down on their right foot.
15. Activity: Who Was Phineas Gage?
• Computer reconstruction
of the skull of Phineas
Gage illustrating the
projection of the
tampering rod through
the brain.
• Picture taken from NIH Curriculum
Supplement; The Brain: Understanding
Neurobiology Through the Study of
Addiction
18. The Reward System
• Part of the brain produces and regulates
feelings of pleasure
– Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA)
– Nucleus accumbens
– Portion of the frontal region of the cerebral cortex
21. What Did We Learn?
• Particular functions are localized to specific
areas of the brain
• Imaging techniques allow scientists to study
activity in the brain
• Normal behaviors can activate the reward
system in the brain and drugs of abuse affect
those same reward circuits
Editor's Notes
When most people think about breathing, they think about the lungs, but not usually the involvement of the brain. Remember the respiratory center located in the brain stem.
Right now, your heart is beating. Although the heart is actually pumping the blood, your brain plays an important role in regulating the heart beat.
The involvement of the brain is more obvious for some tasks than for others.
You are going to be analyzing some PET images.
This images use radioactive glucose to identify parts of the brain that are active.
Active brain areas use more glucose than less active areas. So this means more of the glucose is taken up into active areas.
PET images are color-coded by a computer. The most active brain areas are shown in RED.
Areas in YELLOW are less active than areas in red but are more active than areas in GREEN.
The least active areas are shown in BLUE or PURPLE.
There will be a color scale on the screen when you are looking at the PET images.
Work in your groups to analyze the PET images and answer the questions on Master 1.2.
This same region responds to life-sustaining activities such as eating and drinking and species-sustaining sexual activity.
Drugs activate the brain’s reward system
Drugs also act on other regions of the brain
Drugs alter the way the reward system functions. Drugs action in the reward system makes the person abusing drugs feel pleasure and want to continue taking drugs.
