The hippocampus consists of two “horns” that curve back from the amygdala. Much that it pressed the pedal more than 7,000 times per hour until it collapsed from sheer exhaustion. In one experiment a rat was given the opportunity to electrically stimulate its own hypothalamus by pressing a pedal. Research into these reward centers, Olds (1958) 7 discovered that animals would do almost anything to re-create enjoyable stimulation, including crossing a Rat continued to move to the exact spot in its cage where the stimulation had occurred, as if it were trying to re-create the circumstances surrounding its original experience. The researchers noticed that after being stimulated, the Olds and Milner (1954) 6 discovered these reward centers accidentally after they had momentarily stimulated the hypothalamus of a rat. Hunger, thirst, and sex, and responds to the satisfaction of these needs by creating feelings of pleasure. Through its many interactions with other parts of the brain, the hypothalamus helps regulate body temperature, Linking the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland.

Located just under the thalamus (hence its name) the hypothalamus is a brain structure that contains a number of small areas that perform a variety of functions, including the important role of That are dangerous, the amygdala stimulates the brain to remember the details of the situation so that we learn to avoid it in the future (Sigurdsson, Doyère, Cain, & LeDoux, 2007). In addition to helping us experience fear, the amygdala also helps us learn from situations that create fear. Electrical stimulation of theĪmygdala in other animals also influences aggression. They found that the once angry animal immediately became passive and no longer responded to fearful situations with aggressive behavior. 3 In one early study, Klüver and Bucy (1939) 4 damaged the amygdala of anĪggressive rhesus monkey. The amygdala has connections to other bodily systems related to fear, including the sympathetic nervous system (which we will see later is important in fear responses),įacial responses (which perceive and express emotions), the processing of smells, and the release of neurotransmitters related to stress and aggression (Best, 2009). The amygdala consists of two “almond-shaped” clusters (amygdala comes from the Latin word for “almond”) and is primarily responsible for regulating our perceptions of, and reactions to,Īggression and fear. Includes the amygdala, the hypothalamus, and the hippocampus. The limbic system is a brain area, located between the brain stem and the two cerebral hemispheres, that governs emotion and memory. Including our responses to reward and punishment. Whereas the primary function of the brain stem is to regulate the most basic aspects of life, including motor functions, the limbic system is largely responsible for memory and emotions, Also, the cerebellum contributes to emotional responses, helps us discriminate between different sounds and textures, and is important in Consuming alcohol influences the cerebellum, which is why people who areĭrunk have more difficulty walking in a straight line. People who have damage to the cerebellum have difficulty walking, keeping their balance, and holding their hands steady. When electrical stimulation is applied to the reticular formation of an animal, it immediately becomes fully awake, and when the reticular formation is severedįrom the higher brain regions, the animal falls into a deep coma. The reticular formation also plays important roles in walking, eating, That are coming into the brain from the spinal cord and to relay the remainder of the signals to other areas of the brain. The job of the reticular formation is to filter out some of the stimuli Running through the medulla and the pons is a long, narrow network of neurons known as the reticular formation. In the brain stem that helps control the movements of the body, playing a particularly important role in balance and walking. The spherical shape above the medulla is the pons, a structure

Life-animals that have the remainder of their brains above the medulla severed are still able to eat, breathe, and even move. In many cases the medulla alone is sufficient to maintain Spinal cord enters the skull and forms the medulla, the area of the brain stem that controls heart rate and breathing. It’s designed to control the most basic functions of life, including breathing, attention, and motor responses The brain stem is the oldest and innermost region of the brain. Available under Creative Commons-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Brain stem function psychology