Physical Aspects of the Brain

The brain is safely secured in your head. It should not be confused with the mind. The brain is physical; the mind is functional. The brain is the hardware, the mind is the software.
There are approximately 100 billion neurons in the brain. The adult brain weighs about 1.4 kg and is only 2 percent of the body weight.

The brain has three major parts; the brain stem, cerebellum, and cerebrum.

The brain stem sits atop your spinal column. This is the first part of the brain to be formed in the womb. It has three nerve centres- the midbrain, pons and medulla oblongata. The nerve centres in the midbrain help control movements of the eye. The pons links the two hemispheres of the crebrum. The medulla regulates breathing, heartbeat and blood flow. In short, the brain stem takes care of the survival mechanism of the body.

The cerebellum is ocated just behind the brain stem and manages the movement of our body. Therefore, it contains memory for movement. Thei is called kinaesthetic memory or muscle memory. Most good athletes have very well developed cerebellums.


The crebrum is the final stage of brain development in evolution. this the real brain where thinking and feelings arise. The cerebrum is divided into four areas or lobes:
-> the frontal lobe deals with abstract problem solving.
->the parietal lobe helps process information from the sense.
-> the occipital lobe governs vision and
->the temporal lobe controls memory, hearing and language.

the cerebrum contains the neocortex and limbic system. these two work in tandem. The neocortex is the thinking brain and limbic system is the feeling brain. the limbic system is where the mind meets the body and the endocrine system interfaces with the brain. It is also where thought meets emotions. when the physical health of the limbic system is stimulated, one can effectively operate the intellectual and emotional aspects of life.

The primary parts of the limbic system ate the

hippocampus stores dry and unemotional facts of short term memories. It ships most long-term memories to the neocortex.

Amygdala stores emotinal memories. when there is an emotional impact in a thought, it is automatically shifted to long term memory. Therefore emotion plays a crucial role in long-term memory. In other words, any experience involved with strong emotions is not forgotten for a long time.

Hypothalamus is closely connected to the amygdala . Its primary function is to tell the body how to respond to various situations. Based on the situation it gives messages to the pituitary gland. this is the master gland in the body that relays the message to the rest of the body. The messages are sent through hormones. The hypothalamus controls body temperature, hunger sexual functions. In a crisis, it sends out orders for more adrenaline.

thalamus picks up all incoming sensory messages except smell, and relays them to the appropriate processing centre in the brain. It is basically a relay station.

Pituitary is the master endocrine gland and gives orders to other gland about what to do. It receives messages from the hypothalamus and helps the body produce hormones it needs to respond to various situations. this is considered as the third eye, involved in intuition.

the brain generates electricity. the brain cells run on electricity and the brain has enough electricity to light a 25 watt bulb. thoughts travel through brain cells on electrical currents. Long strings of brain cells light up with electrical energy to form complete and emotions.

Most brain cells are elongated, shaped rather like trees with a branch system. The roots of the neuron are called axons. Information flows into axons form the dentric branches of adjacent neurons. Information travels to the axons of another neuron in the form of an electrical impulse. Eventually, this forms a complete chain like thought or memory. New dentric branches can be stimulated to grow.