Psychology - The Brain

• The brain is split into two halves called the cerebral hemispheres, one on the left and one on the right
• The two hemispheres are contralateral, meaning each hemisphere senses and controls the opposite side of the body
• Cerebral cortex


  • It's the outside layer of the brain, also called gray matter as it's mostly cell bodies doing the processing of the brain
  • The inside or white matter is mostly axons and these are the connections between the neurons
  • The cerebral cortex is wrinkly and folded to increase the brain surface area allowing more space for processing
• Cerebral hemispheres divided into four lobes


  • Temporal lobe - understands and produces spoken language
  • Frontal lobe - involved in conscious planning, memory and logical tasks, also regulates social behavior
  • Parietal lobe - processes sensations from around the body and brings together information from other parts of the brain
  • Occipital lobe - processes visual information coming from the eyes
• Cerebellum


  • Found at the base of the brain, responsible for functions like balance and coordination
• Localization of function


  The brain's abilities are not evenly spread across the brain but are located in particular places
• Specific brain areas and their functions

  • Motor cortex - controls voluntary movement
  • Somatosensory cortex - detects touch sensation from the opposite side of the body
  • Visual cortex - processes visual information
  • Auditory cortex - processes sound information
  • Broca's area - controls speech production
  • Wernicke's area - for understanding speech
• Penfield's work

  • Developed a brain surgery called the Montreal procedure to treat epilepsy
  • Electrically stimulated various parts of the brain in conscious patients to locate the area responsible for epileptic fits
  • Found that stimulating the same areas of the brain in different people produced consistent results
  • Suggested the interpretive cortex contains a perfect recording of memories that can be fully recovered
• Much of Penfield's work has been confirmed by later research, but his suggestion about the interpretive cortex containing perfect memories is seen as a myth due to lack of reliable evidence
• The video provides 5 questions to test the viewer's understanding of the content covered