What is The Brain? Important Parts and its functions

The brain is that part of cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem which lies with­in the cav­i­ty of the skull. It weight about 1.3kg. It is cov­ered by 3 mem­branes called meninges.

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The Brain

The meninges has three layers.

1. Dura­mater - It is out­er most lies close to the under sur­face of bone. It is tough and of fibrous con­nec­tive tissues.
2. Arch­noid­mater - It is mid­dle layer.
3. Pia­mater - It is the inner­most lay­er and close­ly attached to the sur­face of bri­an and spinal cord.

CSF (Cere­bro spinal flu­id) is present in the brain and spinal cord that acts as a shock absorber.

Parts of The Brain are:

Depend­ing upon the struc­tur­al and func­tion­al prop­er­ties and loca­tions the brain can be divid­ed into three parts.

1. Fore­brain — Fore­brain con­sist­ing of two cere­bral hemi­sphere (cere­brum) and dien­cephalons or Hypo­thal­a­mus, thalamus.
2. Mid Brain — Misencephalon
3. Hind Brain — con­sist­ing pons, Medul­la Oblon­ga­ta, Cerebellum.

What is Cerebrum ?

It is the longest part of the brain and con­sist of rights and left cere­bral hemi­spheres which are sep­a­rat­ed in the mid­line by folds of dura­mater called flax cerebri.

The cere­brum itself con­tains the major lobes of the brain and is respon­si­ble for receiv­ing and giv­ing mean­ing to infor­ma­tion from the sense organs, as well as con­trol­ling the body.

The 4 lobes present in the cere­bral cor­tex (the out­er­most lay­er of cere­brum) are

1. The frontal lobe
2. The pari­etal lobe
3. The occip­i­tal lobe
4. The tem­po­ral lobe

Functions

1. To receive sec­ondary stim­uli and con­vey most of them to con­scious­ness includ­ing the per­cep­tion of pain, tem­pra­ture, touch,sight,hearing, taste and smell.
2. Ini­ti­a­tion and con­trol of vol­un­tary mus­cle contraction.
3. Men­tal activ­i­ties involved in mem­o­ry, intel­li­gent sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty, think­ing rea­son­ing, moral sense and learn­ing are attrib­uted to the high­est centre.

What is Midbrain ?

The mid­brain is the area of the brain sit­u­at­ed between the cere­brum above and the pons below. It is the ante­ri­or por­tion of nerve cells and nerve fibres which con­nects the cere­brum with low­er parts of the brain and with the spinal cord . The nerve cell acts as relay sta­tion for the ascend­ing and descend­ing nerve fibre.

What is Cerebellum?

The cere­bel­lum is the largest part of the hind bri­an is sit­u­at­ed in the pos­te­ri­or cra­nial fos­sa of the skull.

Functions

1. The cere­bel­lum is con­nect­ed with the co ordi­na­tion of vol­un­tary mus­cu­lar move­ment pos­ture and balance.
2. The activ­i­ty of the cere­bel­lum is uncon­scious­ness not under the con­trol of will.
3. It helps to main­tain mus­cu­lar tone.
4. It helps to main­tain bal­ance and equilibrium.

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What is Medulla ?

Medul­la, the low­est part of the brain and the low­est por­tion of the brain­stem. The medul­la oblon­ga­ta is con­nect­ed by the pins  to the midbrain.

Functions

1. The res­pi­ra­to­ry cen­tre which con­trols the rate and depth of respiration.
2. The car­diac cen­tre con­trol is the rate and forced car­diac contractions.
3. The vaso­mo­tor cen­tre which con­trols the diam­e­ter of ths blood vessels. 
4. Vis­cer­al cen­tres such as swal­low­ing cen­tre the vom­it­ting cen­tre, cen­tre of move­ment of the stom­ach ‚cen­tre of secre­tion of sali­va and gas­tric juice.

What is Pons?

The pons are sit­u­at­ed in front of the cere­bel­lum below the mid brain and above the medul­la oblon­ga­ta. It con­sist of nerve fibre which con­nects between the two hemi­sphere of the cere­bel­lum and fibre pass­ing between the high­er lev­els of the brain and spinal cord.

Functions

1. The pons, while involved in the reg­u­la­tion of func­tions car­ried out by the cra­nial nerves it hous­es, works togeth­er with the medul­la  to serve an espe­cial­ly crit­i­cal role in gen­er­at­ing the res­pi­ra­to­ry rhythm of breathing.
2. Active func­tion­ing of the pons may also be fun­da­men­tal to rapid eye move­ment (REM) sleep.