1. So, do we really only use 10% of our brain?

2. The Cerebral Cortex or Cerebrum
Divided into halves called hemispheres
Each hemisphere is divided into four lobes.
The cerebral cortex or cerebrum is the most recently evolved part of the brain. It is the largest part of the brain in volume (about 80%). It covers the lower portions like a cap.

3. Lobes and I don’t mean ear lobes
Frontal lobe is involved with personality, emotions, and motor behaviors.
Parietal lobe is involved with perception and sensory experiences.
Occipital lobe is involved with processing visual information
Temporal lobe is involved with hearing and speaking.

4. Frontal Lobe
The frontal lobe can be kind of confusing because it has such a wide range of functions (motor movements to cognitive process)
Front part of the brain, involved in planning, organizing, problem solving, selective attention, personality and a variety of “higher cognitive functions” including behavior and emotions.
The anterior (front) portion of the frontal lobe is called the prefrontal cortex. It is very important for the “higher cognitive functions” and the determination of the personality.
The posterior (back) of the frontal lobe consists of the premotor and motor areas. Nerve cells that produce movement are located in the motor areas. The premotor areas serve to modify movements.
The frontal lobe is divided from the parietal lobe by the central culcus. (sulcus)
Phineas Gage’s Skull
Frontal Lobotomy: Egas Moniz (Portugal) Removed about a 1/3 of the frontal lobe. This surgical procedure ended in the 1950’s because of mixed results and antipsychotic drugs.

5. The MOTOR CORTEX (Frontal Lobe)
The body’s parts (muscles) are individually controlled by the MOTOR CORTEX
This bizarre drawing uses sizes of body parts to show the ability to perform complex movements. (The larger the space on the “MC” the body part occupies the more complex movement it will be able to make)
Besides triggering voluntary movements, the motor cortex may also be involved in remembering the order of how stimuli occur across time.
The MC is a narrow strip of cortex that is located on the back edge of the frontal lobe and extends down its side. The motor cortex is involved in the initiation of all voluntary movements.
Much of our knowledge about the frontal lobe comes from individuals that have suffered brain damage. Brain lesions, Brain Imaging techniques.
Motor Homunculus
The right motor cortex controls muscles on the left side of the brain and vice versa.

6. The sensory cortex is a narrow strip located on the front edge of the parietal lobe.
Notice the size of the lips. Body parts that occupy more space on the SC are more sensitive to external stimulation.
HE AIN’T NO MARVEL COMIC!!
This model shows what a man's body would look like if each part grew in proportion to the area of the cortex of the brain concerned with its sensory perception.
The Sensory Cortex processes sensory information about touch, location, of limbs, pain and temperature. The right side receives info from the left side of the body and vice versa.
Each body part has its own area on the SC, meaning damage to one part could result in the loss of feeling to one part but spare others. (There is more overlap of between body parts on the Motor Cortex)
When you put your hand in your pocket , you can easily tell a key from a nickel from a stick of chewing gum because your parietal love digests info about texture, shape, and size and tells you what the object is.
However, patients with damage to the back of their parietal loves cannot recognize common objects by touch or feel. Evidence that the parietal lobes are involved in other cognitive processes comes from studies using PET scans. Researchers asked subjects to remember letters they saw on a screen by repeating them over and over in their minds.
Pet scans, indicated that maximum activity during this task occurred in the parietal lobe. Research concluded that the parietal lobe is involved when we try to remember things.
The parietal lobe is located directly behind the frontal lobe. The parietal lobe’s functions include processing sensory information from body parts, which included touching, locating positions of limbs, and feeling temperature and pain, and carrying out several cognitive functions, such as attending to and perceiving objects.
Case studies using PET scans conclude that the parietal lobe is also involved in several cognitive functions, including recognizing objects, remembering items, and perceiving and analyzing objects in space. (chess pieces)
(Parietal Lobe)

7. Temporal Lobe: involved in hearing, speaking coherently, and understanding verbal and written material.
The Primary Auditory Cortex (top edge) receives electrical signals from receptors in the ears.
Auditory Association Area.
Further processing—makes sense out of sensations.
Wernicke’s Area (left temporal lobe) is necessary for speaking in coherent sentences and for understanding speech.
Primary auditory cortex
Auditory Association Area
The Primary Auditory Cortex (top edge) receives electrical signals from receptors in the ears and transforms these signals into meaningless sound sensations, such as vowels and consonants. For these sound sensations to become recognizable they must be sent to another area in the temporal lobe, the Auditory Association Area.
Kolb & Wishaw (1990) have identified eight principle symptoms of temporal lobe damage: 1) disturbance of auditory sensation and perception, 2) disturbance of selective attention of auditory and visual input, 3) disorders of visual perception, 4) impaired organization and categorization of verbal material, 5) disturbance of language comprehension, 6) impaired long-term memory, 7) altered personality and affective behavior, 8) altered sexual behavior.
Selective attention to visual or auditory input is common with damage to the temporal lobes (Milner, 1968). Left side lesions result in decreased recall of verbal and visual content, including speech perception. Right side lesions result in decreased recognition of tonal sequences and many musical abilities. Right side lesions can also effect recognition of visual content (e.g. recall of faces).
The temporal lobes are involved in the primary organization of sensory input (Read, 1981). Individuals with temporal lobes lesions have difficulty placing words or pictures into categories.
Language can be effected by temporal lobe damage. Left temporal lesions disturb recognition of words. Right temporal damage can cause a loss of inhibition of talking.
The temporal lobes are highly associated with memory skills. Left temporal lesions result in impaired memory for verbal material. Right side lesions result in recall of non-verbal material, such as music and drawings.
Seizures of the temporal lobe can have dramatic effects on an individual's personality. Temporal lobe epilepsy can cause preservative speech, paranoia and aggressive rages (Blumer and Benson, 1975). Severe damage to the temporal lobes can also alter sexual behavior (e.g. increase in activity) (Blumer and Walker, 1975).
Common tests for temporal lobe function are: Rey-Complex Figure (visual memory) and Wechsler Memory Scale - Revised (verbal memory).
Damage to Wernicke’s area results in aphasia, which is a difficulty in understanding spoken or written words and a difficulty in putting words into meaningful sentences.

8. If you have ever been hit on the back if the head and saw “Stars”, you already know that vision is located in the OCCIPITAL LOBE.
Primary visual cortex
Visual Association Area
The individual that was asked to copy the above pictures mistakenly identified the bird as a tree trunk.
Neglect Syndrome: refers to the failure of a patient to see objects or parts of the body on the side opposite the brain damage. Patients may dress only one side of their body and deny that opposite body arts are theirs (“that is not my leg”)
A patient with neglect syndrome caused by right side brain damage was asked to copy a clock. The patient drew only the right side of the clock because he did not recognize things on his left side.
The PVC receives electrical signals from receptors in the eyes and transforms these signals into meaningless basic visual sensations, such as lights, lines, shadows, colors, and textures. The VAA transforms basic sensations into complete, meaningful visual perceptions.
In visual agnosia, the individual fails to recognize some object, person, or color, yet has the ability to see and even describe pieces of parts of some visual stimulus

9. Brain Imaging Techniques
PET Scan-help scientists understand how drugs effect the brain.
MRI-unsurpassed in anatomical detail
fMRI-combines strategies
CT Scan
Angiography
EEG
PET Scans images reflect blood flow as well as metabolic and chemical activity in the brain.
MRI uses the detection of radio frequency signals produced by displaced radio waves in a magnetic field. It provides an anatomical view of the brain. Advantages:
No X-rays or radioactive material is used.
Provides detailed view of the brain in different dimensions.
Safe, painless, non-invasive.
No special preparation (except the removal of all metal objects) is required from the patient. Patients can eat or drink anything before the procedure.
Disadvantages:
Expensive to use.
Cannot be used in patients with metallic devices, like pacemakers.
Cannot be used with uncooperative patients because the patient must lie still.
Cannot be used with patients who are claustrophobic (afraid of small places). However, new MRI systems with a more open design are now available.
Functional MRI detects changes in blood flow to particular areas of the brain. It provides both an anatomical and a functional view of the brain.
CT scans use a series of X-ray beams passed through the head. The images are then developed on sensitive film. This method creates cross-sectional images of the brain and shows the structure of the brain, but not its function.
Angiography
Angiography involves a series of X-rays after dye is injected into the blood. This method provides an image of the blood vessels of the brain.
Electroencephalography uses electrodes placed on the scalp to detect and measure patterns of electrical activity emanating from the brain.

10. Here is an example of using a combination of PET and MRI techniques:
                    
Thalamus
Cortex
These 2 images show the averaged data from 14 subjects who received a painful injection of the chemical capsaicin into the upper arm. The colored part of the images show increased blood flow (the PET) to the thalamus and primary sensory cortex after the injection. The gray areas of the images (the MRI) show the brain anatomy. So using this method can identify the areas of the brain that are active during specific conditions. This technique could be used to study just about any other cognitive function.
"All hot peppers contain capsaicinoids, natural substances that produce a burning sensation in the mouth, causing the eyes to water and the nose to run, and even induce perspiration. Capsaicinoids have no flavor or odor, but act directly on the pain receptors in the mouth and throat. The primary capsaicinoid, capsaicin, is so hot that a single drop diluted in 100,000 drops of water will produce a blistering of the tongue.

11. Anencephaly: Born with little or no brain tissue. Always Fatal.
Survival is limited to days. The longest a baby has survived with anencephaly is 2 months.
One reason babies can survive for a short while with virtually no Forebrain is because they may have parts of their hindbrain. (Pons, Medulla) Medulla controls vital reflexes.
It is the functions of the forebrain that define us as human and distinguish us from other creatures.
Joseph Loren, 1999
If some brain or nervous tissue is present, it is totally exposed and often damaged because the top of the skill is missing. Survival is usually limited to days.
Anencephaly is always fatal because I also includes other serious physical defects, such as damage to the heart. Lacking most of a brain means that Joseph would be incapable of perceiving, thinking, speaking, planning, or making decisions.
The hindbrain contains the the pons and medulla. The medulla controls vital reflexes, such as breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure, which together can maintain life for a period of time.
This example of anencephaly shows that without the forebrain, a baby may be physiologically alive but show no signs of having a mind or possessing cognitive abilities associated with being human. In a real sense, it is the functions of the forebrain’s four loves that define us as human and distinguish us from all other creatures.

12. Boy Brains and Girl Brains: Different?
Problem-Solving Tasks Favoring Women
Women tend to perform better than men on tests of perceptual speed, in which subjects must rapidly identify matching items for example, pairing the house on the far left with its twin:
In addition, women remember whether an object, or a series of objects, has been displaced:
On some tests of ideational fluency, for example, those in which subjects must list objects that are the same color, and on tests of verbal fluency, in which participants must list words that begin with the same letter, women also outperform men:
To check for sex differences between male and female brains, researchers took brain scans while subjects were solving rotating figure problems.
Problem Solving: Brain scans taken during problem solving showed that max neural activity in males occurred in the right frontal area. In contrast, maximum neural activity in females occurred in the right parietal temporal area.
Researchers concluded that solving rotating figure problems showed a significant sex difference in terms of which brain areas were activated. Which in turn may be the basis for sex differences in performance on this task.
Women do better on precision manual tasks-that is, those involving fine-motor coordination-such as placing the pegs in holes on a board:
And women do better than men on mathematical calculation tests:

13. Problem-Solving Tasks Favoring Men
Men tend to perform better than women on certain spatial tasks. They do well on tests that involve mentally rotating an object or manipulating it in some fashion, such as imagining turning this three-dimensional object
or determining where the holes punched in a folded piece of paper will fall when the paper is unfolded:
Men also are more accurate than women in target-directed motor skills, such as guiding or intercepting projectiles:
Explanations for differences?
Result from differences in socializing and learning
Evolutional differences: different skills needed by different sexes
Men with better spatial skills had an advantage in hunting females with good communication skills had an advantage in child-rearing
They do better on disembedding tests, in which they have to find a simple shape, such as the one on the left, once it is hidden within a more complex figure:
And men tend to do better than women on tests of mathematical reasoning:

14. HEADLINES FROM THE YEAR 2029
Ozone created by electric cars now killing millions in the seventh largest country in the world, Mexifornia, formerly known as California. White minorities still trying to have English recognized as Mexifornia's third language.
Spotted Owl plague threatens northwestern United States crops and livestock.
Baby conceived naturally. Scientists stumped.
Couple petitions court to reinstate heterosexual marriage.

15. HEADLINES FROM THE YEAR 2029
Last remaining Fundamentalist Muslim dies in the American Territory of the Middle East (formerly known as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Lebanon).
Iran still closed off; physicists estimate it will take at least 10 more years before radioactivity decreases to safe levels.
France pleads for global help after being has taken over by Jamaica.
Castro finally dies at age 112; Cuban cigars can now be imported legally, but President Chelsea Clinton has banned all smoking.
George Z. Bush says he will run for President in 2036.
Postal Service raises price of first class stamp to $17.89 and reduces mail delivery to Wednesdays only.
85-year $75.8 billion study: Diet and Exercise is the key to weight loss.
Average weight of Americans drops to 250 lbs.