Human beings are being guided by their brain and nervous system as they interact with other species in their environment. There are some exceptional characteristics that allow the nervous system to direct human behavior: complexity, integration, adaptability, and electrochemical transmission. The brain’s complexity helps a person carry out a number of tasks—breathing seeing, moving—simultaneously. This is with the aid of billions of nerve cells participating. The brain also integrates a large amount of information gathered by the sense organs. Also, the brain and the nervous system together serve as an agent for human being’s adaptation to the constantly changing world. Lastly, the nervous system and the brain function essentially as an ultimate information processing system, which is powered by electrical impulses and chemical messengers (Santrock, 2003).
The brain is divided into four divisions: The hindbrain, which is located at the rear of the skull, the midbrain which is located between the hindbrain and the forebrain (a region where many nerve-fiber systems rise and fall in order to connect the higher and the lower portion of the brain), the forebrain, which is the highest level of the brain, and the spinal cord, which can be found at the spinal column (Santrock, 2003).
The forebrain may be considered as the most important and the most studied division of the brain. Most human experiences would not be possible without the forebrain. It contains the limbic system (amygdala, hippocampus), which is responsible for both memory and emotion; the thalamus, which is a very important organizer and sender of information; the basal ganglia which function as a coordinator of voluntary movements, and the hypothalamus, which monitors pleasurable activities such as eating, drinking, and sex. The forebrain also includes the cerebral cortex. Which functions for the highest mental activities such as thinking, analyzing, and planning (Santrock, 2003).
Most studies that were conducted by psychologists focus on specific parts of the forebrain and how they may be accounted for certain behaviors or how interventions may be conducted in these areas to improve existing behaviors. One study done by Bucci and Chess (2005) showed that the regulation of the changes in attentional processing of a conditioned stimulus involves specific parts of the forebrain such as the amygdala (its central nucleus, specifically) and the projections of the basal forebrain cholinergic towards the posterior parietal cortex. Their study examined how the posterior parietal cortex influence “attentional orienting behavior”. The study found out that even if the PPC was damaged, the attentional behavior is not diminished. These kinds of study may be given more attention to identifying how exactly the PPC affect associative learning and attention processing (Bucci and Chess, 2005).
“Another study, by Fortier et al (2008), was done to examine the ability of abstinent alcoholics and matched control participants to acquire learned responses during delay discrimination and discrimination reversal. The said behavior was then associated with the participants’ drinking history and neuropsychological performance. It has been found that alcoholics who learned the initial discrimination were impaired in acquiring the new conditioned stimulus after the tones reversed; this is a phenomenon that has previously been linked to specific forebrain structures. The researchers suggested that the presence of alcoholic-related associative behaviors that interfere with the ability to acquire other information about other adaptive associations may play a very important role in the alcohol addiction” (Fortier et al, 2008).
Why do psychologists pay much more attention to the forebrain than the other divisions of the brain? Psychology is the study of behavior, affect and cognition, and apparently, all of these processes happen in the forebrain. From the lobes to the hypothalamus, psychologists find many surprising links from the brain’s activity to specific behaviors.
References
Bucci, D. J. & Chess, A. C. (2005). Specific changes in conditioned responding following neurotoxic damage to the posterior parietal cortex. Behavioral Neuroscience. Vol. 119(6) 1580-1587.
Fortier, C. B., Steffen, E. M., LaFleche, G. et al (2008). Delay discrimination and reversal eyeblink classical conditioning in abstinent chronic alcoholics. Neuropsychology. Vol. 22 (2) 196-208.
Santrock, J. W. (2003). Psychology 7th edition. McGraw-Hill, New York.