Teenage Brain

As said in the video, the teenage brain is a very complex brain, although it has the same parts as an adult brain, all the functions work in a different form, and the last part of the brain to develop in a teenager is the frontal lobe, and this lobe is the one who controls emotions, mood etc. That’s the reason that teenagers are really confused about what they are feeling, love? They think they are in love when they are not, they feel happiness when they are not supposed too, or humor when they are not supposed too, and sadness when they are not supposed to feel sadness. Teenagers are really difficult when it comes to their mood, they may be very bipolar because of the frontal lobe that is not fully developed. Teenagers don’t use their brain at the level they are supposed because they are thinking in things they are not supposed to think while they are in school etc, that’s why teenagers need a lot of sleep, and less work, because if teenagers don’t sleep much, they are making lots damage to their brain. In conclusion, the use of the teenage brain, is as tricky to understand as a baby brain, the only difference is that it is more developed.

-Rodrigo Estevez



How Do Our Brains Work?

1.       What does the word "hemisphere" refer to when talking about the brain?

When you talk about hemispheres referring to brains, it talks about the sides of the brain, like the right hemisphere and left hemisphere.

2.       What are the major differences between the left and right sides of the brain?

There are many functions that both sides of the brain do, for example the left brain does reading skills, and right brain controls emotions and recognizing family. In general the left side does skills like reading writing, and remembering vocabulary, and the right brain stores experiences and feelings and your emotions.

3.      What is the corpus collasum?

It’s a tissue that connects the two hemispheres of your brain. It also functions as a way of communication for both hemispheres.

4.      Explain the study performed by Paul Broca in which he discovered "Broca's Area."

This study made Paul Broca famous, the discovery of Broca’s Area, this is a part of the front lobe that gives the human body the ability to talk, he discovered this part of the front lobe by studying the people that were incapable of talking.

5.      Explain the study conducted by Roger Sperry in regard to "split brain."

Roger Sperry discovered the different kind of functions of both hemispheres of the brain. There was no cure for a kind of epilepsy, just by surgery and cutting off the connection of the hemispheres (Corpus Callosum). When they cut this connection they studied their different behavior and the brain in general. This studies demonstrated that both parts of the brain are very different and that they both have very different jobs. For example the left hemisphere job is the analytical and verbal jobs, the right hemisphere takes care about music, space, and perception.

6.      Explain the study conducted by Karl Wernicke which led to the discovery of Wernicke's Area."

Wernicke’s Area is one of the parts of the “Cerebral Cortex”. The other part is the Broca’s Area, this area is responsible for audition, and speech. Wernicke saw that brain damage also caused language problems.

7.       Which lobe is most responsible for vision?

Right Hemisphere

8.       Which lobe is most responsible for hearing and language?

Left Hemisphere

9.       Which lobe is most responsible for performing math calculations?

Left Hemisphere

10.   Which lobe is most responsible for judgment, reasoning and impulse control?

The Frontal Lobe

 Works Cited:

http://www.sosimplesightwords.com/faqs.html

http://www.ask.com/bar?q=brain+hemisphere&page=1&qsrc=2891&dm=all&ab=0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fbrain.web-us.com%2Fbrain%2FLRBrain.html&sg=esq3jwfW2NavEmQTLokSz0s5v9gIYx83NXX%2BMnaQ8c%3D%0D%0A&tsp=1285097155327

http://www.ansf wers.com/topic/corpus-callosum

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Broca

http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/split-brain/background.html

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/split.html  

                http://psychology.about.com/od/windex/g/def_wernickesar.htm

-Rodrigo Estevez

Who Was Phineas Gage?

Phineas Gage was a handyman who suffered a terrible accident in his brain; due to this he promoted a huge advance in the study of the brain. His accident was a very rare one, he was a railroad handyman who in a job was working in a mine, they wanted to make a railroad and his job was to put dynamite in the mine and pressure it with sand with a metal tube, one day he forgot to put first the sand and he pushed the dynamite without sand with the tube, this caused a spark and this caused the dynamite to explode, and the metal tube went up in his face and went through his face and to his brain and the tube just went through his head, this made him a hole in his brain and face, he lost his eye and part of his brain, all of this happened to him, but surprisingly he survived the accident. They say that at the moment Gage was talking, he was conscious every moment of the accident. Because of the accident he was not the same person anymore, he was mad all the time and was not a person which people liked to be with. He lost his old job and couldn’t maintain one for a long time. He was not the same person anymore he changed his mood since the accident. This accident benefit science in proving that if the front lobe was damaged it could make personality changes, social skills, and emotions, before this accident happened front lobes were considered non functional part of the brain, and with no relation with the human personalities. Brain localization is a term that states that the brain controls everything in your body, such as your vision, movements, and processing information.  Brain lateralization is used when people try to separate the brain in two parts. Because both parts of the brain, the right and left side do not look alike.

-Rodrigo Estevez

Works Cited:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~bbrown/psyc1501/brain/loclat.htm

http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/brain.html