The brain is the most important organ of the central nervous system (CNS), present in all animals with bilateral symmetry, obviously including humans.
What is the brain for?
The brain controls all the functions of our body; those that allow you to stay alive, then psychic, motor and sensory activities. Many of these functions are under the control of the will, while others are completely “autonomous” (breathing, heartbeat, digestive activities, etc.). Furthermore, in the human being, the brain is the seat of so-called “superior” functions, such as thinking, language, learning, etc. The “voluntary” functions of the brain are divided into three groups: the motor ones (such as walking, swallowing, grasping), the sensitive ones (ie linked to the 5 sense organs) and the cognitive ones (linguistic, mnemonic, logical and judgmental). Of all the cognitive functions, those most subject to aging are those related to memory
What is the difference between brain and brain?
The brain (from the Greek ἐγκέφαλος, enképhalos, “inside the head”, composed of ἐν, en, “in” and κεϕαλή, kephalè, “head”) is that part of the central nervous system (CNS) completely contained in the skull and divided by the spinal cord. The brain is made up of three parts:
1) Brain stem (divided into bulb, bridge and midbrain).
2) Cerebellum .
3) Brain .
From this we can understand how the brain is the part of the CNS that is in the skull, while the brain is a part of the brain itself.
How much does a brain weigh?
The weight is quite variable, normally it does not exceed 1500 grams and has a volume between 1100 and 1300 cm³, bearing in mind the possibility of significant variations between individual and individual in addition to sex (the male brain is on average larger than the female brain) and obviously aged.
How is a brain made?
The brain is divided into two parts:
1) Telencephalon (the most superficial portion of the brain, consisting of the cerebral hemispheres and the nuclei of the base. The telencephalon is extremely developed and can be divided into four areas or lobes : frontal lobe, parietal lobe , occipital lobe, temporal lobe. The telencephalon also includes the cerebral cortex which is very important at a functional level, being the seat of the “superior brain functions”, such as thought and consciousness.
2) Diencephalon: placed inside the telencephalic white matter, it is made up of five portions (thalamus, epitalamus, metatalamus, hypothalamus, subthalamus) structurally and functionally linked to the nuclei of the base. It is found continuously, caudally, with the midbrain via the two cerebral peduncles.
Brain plasticity
The brain has an extraordinary property called “brain plasticity”. It is about the ability to modify its structure and functionality based on the activity of neurons and to respond to experience or even be modified by the latter. In the first three years of life, brain plasticity is very high, but also the adult brain, on the basis of the latest scientific discoveries which, is able to continually remodel itself on the basis of new experiences, forming new synaptic circuits or restructuring existing ones. Today we know that the human brain is not a rigid structure determined by birth but can still grow and change it What is memory
Memory is one of the main functions of the brain. It consists of the ability to store, maintain and retrieve certain information. The brain is able to process figurative impressions, record what has been learned and associate it with previous information. The greater the possible associations, the easier it is to remember what has been learned for longer times.
Various types of memories
Classically, various types of memory are distinguished. One of the most frequently used criteria is that according to the fleeting or lasting nature of the information stored, a short-term (or immediate) memory and a long-term memory are distinguished. The first is that which holds a low amount of data for a few seconds or a few minutes.
The second, on the other hand, allows you to keep a greater amount of information for a longer (potentially unlimited) period of time.
Everyone has long-term memory experiences where memories are associated with strong emotions experienced in a given circumstance. In long-term memory we can then distinguish an episodic memory that concerns personal experiences or memories and that depends on the context, especially emotional, with which they were lived and a semantic memory that refers to the memories of the facts and the knowledge of objects and the world (whose re-enactment does not concern the space-time context in which this information was stored). For example, remembering that in the summer of such a year we were in Paris is about episodic memory, but knowing that Paris is the capital of France is preserved in semantic memory.
Finally, procedural memory refers to the ability to remember a series of movements that are performed to perform an action automatically, without having a continuous awareness of it. For example, tie your shoes, tie your tie, etc. The latter, unlike the other two, is much more resistant to wear and tear and brain damage.
The inability to remember is defined instead as “amnesia”. Anterograde amnesia can be distinguished, when new data cannot be stored after a trauma (for example a psycho-physical shock, a mourning, an accident) and retrograde amnesia when we no longer remember events that occurred immediately before a trauma (a typical phenomenon of accidents and head injuries).
