The brain is a beautiful and complex enigma of the central nervous system (CNS). The central nervous system is comprised of the brain and spinal cord. The brain is big processing center and the the spinal cord relays information between our brain and the nerves in the other areas of our bodies. The skull and vertebrae are what protects our delicate CNS structures.
Spinal Cord
The spinal cord of an average adult is a long bundle of nerves about 18 inches long and half an inch thick. The spinal cord resides inside a canal through the vertebrae that comprise the spinal column. The spinal cord connects to the brain at the base of the brain via the brain stem. There are three sections of the spinal cord: cervical, thoracic, and lumbar-sacral. Each section of the cord communicates with specific areas of the body. The cervical spinal cord communicates with the nerves in the head and neck. The thoracic spinal cord communicates with nerves in the chest, abdomen, and arms. The lumbar-sacral spinal cord communicates with the nerves to the lower part of our body, the legs.
Brain
The brain obviously resides inside our skull and weighs about 3 pounds for the average adult. Our brain is the organ that defines us as individuals because it is what controls our thoughts, emotions, sensations, memories, motor skills, processes our vision, regulates our breathing, regulates our body temperature, even tells us when we are hungry or have to go to the bathroom. Interestingly, the brain isn’t even fully developed when you’re born. Your brain isn’t fully developed until you are about 25 years old! Our brain houses the essence of who we are, our quirks, our humor, and all those complex things that make everyone so unique.
Despite people using analogies like muscle memory, the brain itself is not a muscle. Actually, the brain is comprised of mostly fat with some water, carbohydrates, protein, and salts. The structure of the brain is an amazingly complex network of blood vessels, nerves, and special cells only found in the brain that have specific functions. Certain parts of the brain have certain functions and need to communicate with other parts of the brain and body. The brain communicates amongst these various components via electrical impulses generated and sent across the network of neurons. It is wildly complex.
You know how television and movies depict giant server rooms? Think a huge room with computer components precisely stacked on top of each other in neat rows. All the pieces are connected via wires that you can see on the outside but also wires on the inside. The server room needs to be in an environment that can be tightly controlled because if it gets too hot, there will be catastrophic problems.
In the server room, there a gentle hum of electricity, lots of flashing lights indicating some kind of activity – you see it’s working but don’t really know what information is zooming around between the wires and various components. Each component has a specific job but it also relies on other components to to their job and other components rely on it to do its job. When it works, it is great. When it doesn’t, it can be really difficult to locate the problem or problems. That’s basically a very rudimentary analogy of how the brain works.
The neurons communicate with each other through electrical impulses. Like a computer, sometimes these impulses short circuit and become unable to send the information. Sometimes, they get super excited and stuck in a loop which we can see as a seizure. The point is, that even when we are sleeping, zoning out watching TV, or doing complicated problem solving our brains are always sending signals to other areas of the brain.
The brain has three major components: the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and the brainstem. These components are then broken down into other components. Knowing what is housed in each area can help pinpoint where there might be a problem.
Cerebrum
The cerebrum is the biggest structure that is the top part of the brain has two hemispheres – right and left. Two of the 12 cranial nerves originate in the cerebrum. Most people have a dominant hemisphere. Both the right and left hemispheres are further broken down into the lobes of the brain: frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe.
The frontal lobe is the largest lobe. This is where we get our personality, make complex decisions, organize thoughts into lots of separate steps, movement, and has the area known as “Broca’s area” which is the ability for speech.
The parietal lobe is the middle area. This area helps us interpret touch and pain, understand spatial relationships between objects, identify objects, and contains “Wernicke’s Area” which is where we understand/interpret spoken language.
The occipital lobe is on the back side of the head and is responsible for vision.
The temporal lobe are on the sides of the brain that house short term memory, speech, and musical rhythm.
Cerebellum
The cerebellum is also known as the “little brain” and is a small structure located between the cerebrum and brainstem. The function of the cerebellum is for voluntary muscle movement and controlling posture, balance and equilibrium of the body.
Brainstem
The brainstem is comprised of three structures: midbrain, pons, and medulla. It is the brainstem that connects to the cerebellum and spinal cord. 10 of the 12 cranial nerves originate in the brainstem.
The midbrain is where a lot of information is facilitated: hearing, movement, understanding changes to the environment, etc.
The pons is where four of the 12 cranial nerves begin. It is responsible for things like tear production, chewing, blinking, focusing vision, balance, facial expression, and hearing.
The medulla is at the base of the brainstem and is mission critical as it controls things like breathing, heart rate, blood flow, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels. This area is also responsible for reflexive actions – sneezing, coughing, swallowing, and vomiting.
There are a lot more details I could share about the structure and components of the brain, but these are the basic structures and functions as I understand them. I think understanding what the brain does makes it easier to understand why Dustin had particular symptoms and how they correlate with progression throughout his diagnosis.
Beside you in time 