• Question: what do you think is the moast useful part of the brain and why???

    Asked by groovyman to Clare, Mariana, Pedro, Robert, Susanne on 15 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Susanne Muekusch

      Susanne Muekusch answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      Hi groovyman,

      We don’t understand much about how our brain works to solve complex tasks. We know for some regions that they are absolutely required for specific tasks. Mostly, we learn that from patients who had part of their brain damaged and suddenly couldn’t do things, they could before.

      For example, they can’t speak anymore, if the damage is in the region for speach.
      Or they cannot store new information. They can remember everything that happenend before the damage, but since then, they forget everything that is longer ago than five minutes.
      There are even debates on if there is a brain region that might be important for empathy.

      It is hard to rank those regions in terms of usefulness, because I wouldn’t want to be without any of those abilities!

    • Photo: Clare Taylor

      Clare Taylor answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      I don’t think I’d want to give up any part of my brain… would you??

    • Photo: Mariana Campos

      Mariana Campos answered on 18 Nov 2012:

      I want every single bit of it. I already think I don’t have enough spar for all I want to know, and for all the things I want to learn: like German, or playing table football. For all this you need your brain so I think all the tiny bits are important. I would even get extra bits if I could. My memory is just horrible.

    • Photo: Robert Insall

      Robert Insall answered on 19 Nov 2012:

      Hey groovyman

      To keep alive at any cost, your brainstem is the most important. It keeps your lungs breathing and muscles going and generally maintains things. You can keep a person alive if their brainstem is going.

      But I wouldn’t like to be just alive and breathing. I want to be living and thinking and enjoying myself. So I say the cerebellum is pretty important to be me…

Comments

  • Photo: Susanne

    Susanne commented on :

    Maybe one more thing to add: I was just referring to the most complicated brain functions in my examples. However, there are also parts of our brain which are absolutely essential for us to survive. For example the part of the brain that controls breathing. If this part is damaged, you cannot survive.