Brain Function

Summary Below:

The Frontal Lobe:

How we interact with our surroundings.
How we react to our environment.
Our judgments on daily routines.
Our emotional responses.
Our expressive language.
Assigns meaning to words we choose.
Involves word association.
Memory for habits and motor activities.
Problems this can cause:

Paralysis of various body parts.
Problems remembering the order of steps involved in completing multi-task movements, such as making coffee or brushing your teeth.
Problems interacting with others.
Loss of flexibility in thinking.
Dwelling on a single thought.
Inability to focus on a task.
Mood changes.
Personality changes.
Inability to express language (Broca’s aphasia).
Difficulty problem solving.


The Temporal Lobe:

Hearing
Memory
Visual perceptions.
Categorizing of objects.
Problems this can cause:

Problems recognizing faces. (prosopagnosia).
Problems with understanding spoken words. (Wernicke’s Aphasia).
Selective attention to what we see or do.
Difficulty identifying objects and verbalizing about objects.
Short-term memory loss.
Interference with long-term memory.
Increase or decrease in sexual behavior.
Inability to categorize objects.
Right lobe can cause persistent talking.
Increased aggressive behavior.


The Brain Stem:

Breathing
Heart Rate
Swallowing
Reflexes to seeing and hearing.
Controls sweating, blood pressure, digestion, temperature (autonomic nervous system).
Affects level of alertness.
Ability to sleep.
Sense of balance.
Problems this can cause:

Decreased ability to breathe and control respirations.
Difficulty swallowing food and liquids (dysphagia).
Problems with perception of the environment.
Problems with balance and movement.
Dizziness and nausea (vertigo).
Sleeping difficulties (insomnia, sleep apnea).


The Cerebellum:

Coordination and voluntary movement.
Balance and equilibrium.
Some memory for reflex motor acts.
Problems this can cause:

Loss of ability to coordinate fine movements.
Loss of ability to walk.
Inability to reach out and grab objects.
Tremors
Dizziness
Slurred Speech.
Inability to make rapid movements.


Occipital Lobe:

Vision
Problems this can cause:

Problems with visual field cuts.
Difficulty locating items in the environment.
Problems identifying colors (Color agnosia).
Production of hallucinations.
Visual illusions.
Word blindness.
Problems recognizing drawn objects.
Inability to recognize movement of an object.
Problems with reading and writing.


Parietal Lobe:

Location for visual attention.
Location for touch perception.
Goal directed voluntary movements.
Manipulation of objects.
Integration of different senses that allows for understanding a single concept.
Problems this can cause:

Inability to attend to one object at a time.
Inability to name an object. (amnesia).
Inability to locate words for writing. (agraphia).
Problems with reading.
Difficulty with drawing objects.
Difficulty in distinguishing left from right.
Difficulty doing mathematics. (dyscalcula).
Lack of awareness of certain body parts and/or surrounding space. (apraxia) that leads to problems with self-care.
Inability to focus visual attention.
Problems with eye and hand coordination.

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