El Cerebro

What is the Brain?

The brain is, talking in a scientifically way, a pinkish-gray mass composed of approximately 10 billion nerve cells. These nerve cells are linked to each other and they are, together, responsible of controlling all the mental functions.

There are two kinds of nerves that form our brains matter: nerve fibers and nerve cell bodies. The nerve fibers are in the brain and are covered by a near-white substance called myelin; these nerves form the white matter of the brain; and the nerve cells bodies that are not covered by the myelin sheaths form the gray matter.

Some of the functions that perform our brain are maintaining homeostasis, cognition and interpretation, motor control of the body, emotional responsibilities and a lot more. Also your brain keeps all the body system working together to keep you alive.

Other of the functions of the brain is to enable us to reason out and think; also it stores the memory and control all our conscious and unconscious activities.

Brain Parts:

Our brain is a complex organ, because it has a lot of function and many parts, like:

The Cerebellum: this is the hind part of the brain. It is made of gray, unmyelinated cells on the exterior and white and myelinated cells in the interior. The cerebellum coordinates the muscular movement and the monitors posture along with the midbrain.

The Thalamus: the thalamus forms the major part of the diencephalon; it receives the incoming sensory impulses and routes or sends them to the appropriate higher centers.

The Hypothalamus: the hypothalamus occupies the rest of the diencephalon; it regulates the heartbeat, the fluid balance and the body temperature.

Corpus callosum: it is located above the thalamus. It is a neuro-rich membrane connecting the two hemisphere of the cerebrum.

The Cerebrum: the cerebrum occupies the topmost portion of our skull; it is, by far, the largest part of our brain. It makes up like the 85% of the brain’s weight. The cerebrum is split vertically into the left and right hemispheres, it appears grooved and deeply fissure. The upper face of it is called the cerebral cortex and contains most of the master controls of our body.

The Cerebral Cortex: it is found in the cerebrum. Here is where the ultimate analysis of the sensory data occurs, and motor impulses originate the initiate, reinforce, or inhibit the entire spectrum of muscle and gland activity.

Here also we can find the two hemispheres, right and left. Actually there is something a bit funny about these hemispheres: the left one controls the right one, and the right one controls the left one.

The Pituitary: it participates in growth regulation.

The Basal Ganglian: it is located above the diencephalon in each cerebral hemisphere. It controls coordination and the habitual skills like chewing or playing piano.

The Reticular Activating System: it forms a special system of nerve cells linking the medulla, the pons, the midbrain and the cerebral cortex.

The reticular activating system or RAS functions as a sentry.

(EX: in a noisy crowd the RAS alerts a person when a friend speaks and enables that

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