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Summary: Structural Boundaries

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The brain is composed of 3 main structural divisions, the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the brainstem. The cerebrum fills up most of your skull, it is divided into right and left hemispheres it is involved in remembering, problem solving, thinking, and feeling. It also controls movement. Functionally, it obtains information from your surroundings then sends that information to a specific part of the cerebrum. The cerebrum interprets the knowledge and decides what must happen next. The cerebrum, holds the instructions for everything you do in your daily life. The cerebellum sits at the back of your head, under the cerebrum. It controls coordination and balance. Most body movements require the coordination of multiple muscle groups. Times muscle …show more content…

During the first hour of sleep, brain waves slow down, and the eyes and muscles relax. Heart rate, temperate, and blood pressure fall as well. Over time, however, brain activity drastically increases from slow wave sleep to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and brain waves observed during REM are similar to those observed during waking. However, atonia occurs, which is when the body’s muscles are paralyzed, the muscles that allow breathing and control eye movements are fully active, and heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature increase. As sleep continues, the brain alternates between periods of slow wave sleep. It’s divided into four stages. Stage 1, the brain activity is unsynchronized. Stage 2, our breathing, heartbeat, and brain activity become slower. Stage 3, our breathing, pulse, and brain activity is slower yet, and brain activity is synchronized. Stage 4 of sleep, our breathing, pulse, and brain activity is the slowest, and brain activity is highly synchronized. Brain activity is increased with each stage and brief periods of REM sleep, with the slow wave sleep becoming less deep and the REM periods more prolonged until you are woken. Approximately 20 percent of a person’s total sleep is spent in REM …show more content…

Dreams can occur in other stages of sleep other than REM, but are usually vaguer. We are able to incorporate external sounds into our dreams such as a telephone ringing of thunderstorm. Instead, most active dreaming occurs during REM sleep, when the brain is most active. During REM sleep, signals from the pons travel to the thalamus, which relays them to the cerebral cortex, which is the part of the brain that interprets and organizes information from the environment during consciousness and stimulate its regions that are responsible for learning, thinking, and organizing information the pons also sends signals that shut off neurons in the spinal cord, causing

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