Powerpoint on four brain structures

1. Medulla
 Carries out and regulates life
sustaining functions such as
breathing, swallowing and heart
rate
 The medulla is easily the most
important part of the brain.
 It's functions are involuntary.
 We would not be able to live
without the medulla because of
the myriad of crucial tasks it
performs including regulating
blood pressure and breathing.
 As a part of the brain stem, it
also helps transfer neural
messages from the brain to the
spinal cord.

2. What would happen if there was
damage to the Medulla?
 Most damage to this part proves to be fatal
 Why?
 If the patient survives, one might find that they are in
a vegetative state

3. Reticular formation
 The reticular formation extends
through the central core of the
medulla oblongata, pons, and stops
in the midbrain
 It is an intricate system composed
of loosely clustered neurons in what
is otherwise white matter
 Arousal
 Attention
 Sleep
 Regulates awareness

4. Damage to the Reticular Formation
 Damage to the reticular formation is serious, and can
lead to coma or death.
 In less severe cases, a damaged reticular formation can
cause fatigue, changes in sexual arousal and disrupted
sleep patterns.
 Severe damage can cause you to fall into a coma by
inhibiting your body's ability to wake up, and even
more severe damage is fatal.

5. Thalamus
 Part of the forebrain, below the corpus
callosum
 Responsible for relaying information
from the sensory receptors to proper
areas of the brain where it can be
processed
 The thalamus is similar to a doctor
that diagnoses, or identifies, a
patient's disease or sickness.
 It diagnoses different sensory
information that is being transmitted
to the brain including auditory
(relating to hearing or sound), visual,
tactile (relating to touch), and
gustatory (relating to taste) signals
 After that, it directs the sensory
information to the different parts and
lobes of the cortex

6. Damage to the Thalamus
 If this part of the brain is damaged, all sensory information
would not be processed and sensory confusion would result.
 True of False? Which of the following statements (sentences)
could occur if there was damage to the thalamus?
 1) Visual sensory information could be wrongly sent to the
auditory processing center.
 2) That person would not be walk properly
 3)That person would not be able to write
 4) Sensory confusion could result
 5) Sensory information would not be correctly processed.

7.  Thalamic Syndrome
 Neurological disorder that causes your body to become
extremely sensitive to pain because your thalamus is
damaged
 Strokes can damage your thalamus
 A stroke happens when blood flow to a part of the brain
stops. A stroke is sometimes called a "brain attack." If
blood flow is stopped for longer than a few seconds, the
brain cannot get blood and oxygen. Brain cells can die,
causing permanent damage.

8. Hippocampus
 Part of the Limbic system, in
each temporal lobe
 Responsible for processing of
long term memory and
emotional responses
 It not only assists with the
storage of long term
memories, but is also
responsible for the memory
of the location of objects or
people. We would not even
be able to remember where
our house is without the work
of the hippocampus.

9. Damage to the Hippocampus
 Alzheimer's disease, has been proven to have affected
and damaged this area of the brain
 Marijuana