Every creature on Earth has a brain.

The brain is responsible for a number of different tasks. All of these tasks are involuntarily coordinated, controlled and regulated by our brains. This includes:

• Giving us the power to think, speak, imagine etc.
• Controlling body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate and breathing.
• Accepting and managing large amounts of information about an individual’s environment based on our various senses.
• Handling physical motion when walking, talking, standing or sitting.
• Allows us to think, dream, reason and experience emotions.

Our information-processing and control system consist of our brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves.

The brains of most invertebrate are very simple and consist of multitudes of ganglia. The function of each of these ganglion is to control sensory and motor functions through reflex pathways. All of the ganglia are connected together to form a simple nervous system and as our nervous systems evolved, chains of ganglia also evolved into more centralized simple brains.

All brains have the following parts:

Brainstem: Consists of the medulla, pons and midbrain. However, some animals only have a medulla. The responsibility of the brainstem is to control the reflexes and involuntary functions carried out by our bodies. This includes hear rate, blood pressure, limb movements and involuntary tasks involving digestion and urination.

Cerebellum: Integrates information from the vestibular system that indicates our position and movement and uses this information to coordinate the movements of our limbs.

Hypothalamus and pituitary gland: Control bodily functions, temperature and behavioural responses.

Cerebrum: Consists of the cortex, large fibre tracts and deeper structures such as the basal ganglia, amygdala, and the hippocampus. The cerebrum is what integrates information from all of the sense organs, initiates mobility, controls emotions and holds memory and thought processes.

The cortex gets larger as you go from smaller organisms to larger organisms. The enlarged cortex takes on additional important functions, such as information processing, speech, thought and memory.

Thalamus: Evolved to help relay information from the brainstem and spinal cord to the cerebral cortex.

The components of our brain work together to form out "Lower Brain" and our "Higher Brain".

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