Biopsychology: An Exploration of the Brain and Behavior

Running head: BIOPSYCHOLOGY
Biopsychology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The term behavioural neuroscience involves various principles which are related to the
different studies of genetic, developmental and mechanism of the physiology of the human
behaviour. The behavioural neuroscience can also be considered as psychobiology. Since the 18th
and the 19th century this discipline of science has started gaining importance (Lewis 2016). This
thing was described by Descartes that the pneumatics of the fluids of human body was able to
explain the behaviour of the motor neurons in humans beings and other reflexes. The invention
of anatomy, predominant neuroanatomy lead to the origin of behavioural neuroscience and also
psychology as one of the important branch of science. According to Balbi, Destrade and Goriely
(2018), the primitive document which is written and focussed on the study of the anatomy of the
human brain is related with the Edwin Smith Papyrus which is an ancient Egyptian document.
Later much developments happened when it was said that the brain was only responsible for the
purpose of looking after the body and also that every senses of humans were related with the
brain was postulated by Alcmaeon. This essay is going to elaborate the structures of brain and is
also going to provide the evidences relating brain and behaviour.
Anatomical structures of brain
The most important organ of the whole nervous system is the brain and the spinal cord.
These two organs comprise the central nervous system. The main constituents of brain are the
cerebrum, brain stem and cerebellum. The weight of brain in average can be said to be 1.2 kg to
1.4 kg which make up only 2% of the total human body weight. This occupies a volume of 1260
cubic centimetre in males and1130 cubic centimetre in females (Sussman et al. 2016). The
largest part of brain is the cerebrum and this part is divided into right and left hemispheres. The

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Corpus callosum, which is a band of white fibres connect the two hemispheres. Both of the two
hemispheres are divided into four lobes, the name of those lobes are frontal lobes, temporal lobe,
occipital lobe and parental lobe. Parietal lobe and the frontal lobe is differentiated by the central
sulcus and the inferior region is divided by the lateral sulcus. The cerebrum has been divided into
telecenphalon and diencephalon (Jones 2017). The telecenphalon is made up of cortex, the
subcortical fibres and basal nuclei. The diencephalon also contains the hypothalamus and
thalamus. The cortex is the outermost region of the cerebrum, this region contains the grey
appearance as it contains cell bodies or the cyton part of the neurons. For this reason, this region
is called ‘grey matter’. In the cortex, a structure which is folded is present, where each of the
folds represents the gyrus and each of the grooves denotes the sulcus. According to Mai,
Majtanik and Paxinos (2015), the limbic system is comprised of the various cortical and
subcortical portions which are mainly responsible for the emotional response and the formation
of the memory functions and also it contains hippocampus, amygdala, fornix, mammillary
bodies, cingulate gyrus and also the parahyippocampal gyrus.
The basal ganglia or the basal nuclei include the putamen, caudate nucleus, globus
pallidus, substantia nigra and subthalamic nucleus. This particular region of the brain includes
the nucleus, substantia nigra and subthalamic nucleus. This region has similarity with the motor
cortex, premotor cortex and also the motor nucleus of the thalamus, apart from playing an
important role in the movement. Parkinson disease and the huntingtin disease are the two
examples of the deformities in the basal nuclei (Serlin et al. 2015). The thalamus also acts in the
way of a centre for relaying for the purpose of sending input signals to the cortex and also it
obtains the cardinal senses along with smell. The right and left portions of the thalamus are
divided by the third ventricle and an association is there between the posterior nuclei and the

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dorsal nuclei, having the projections which extends to the parietal cortex region and the cingulate
gyrus, respectively.
The region of epithalamus include habenula, habenular commissure, posterior
commissure and pineal gland. The region of subthalamus is present in between the subthalamic
nucleus, red nucleus and the substantia nigra, which helps in modulation of the movements. In
the anterior part of the ventricle is located in the hypothalamic nuclei is located and thsiplays an
important role in the mediation of the visceral, autonomic, homeostatic and endocrine functions
(Barrett et al. 2019). The region of brain stem contains the pons, midbrain and medulla
oblongata. The spinal cord continues with the medulla oblongata through the foramen magnum
and on the dorsal side, two pairs of protrusions is observable. In the superior region of the
medulla pons is located and also it contains the horizontal bands of fibre also called the
pontocerebellar fibres which originate from the region of corticopontine fibres. The superior-
most part of the brain stem is also called the midbrain or the mesencephalon, this region appears
to be in the shape of two bundles which gets divided rostrally like cerebral peduncles. The
sensory information are conveyed by the cranial nerves of 12 pairs and also for the signals of
motor to and from the neck and the head. The name of the cranial nerves according to the
sequences are optic, olfactory, occulomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, facia, abducens,
vestibulocochlear, glossopharyngeal, vagus, hypoglossal and accessory (Khonsary 2017).
In the dorsal region of the medulla and the pons, cerebellum is present, in the posterior
fossa and is also divided into two hemispheres which are joined by the vermis or the midline.
This region of the brain is composed of Purkinje, granular and molecular layers. Protective layers
of meninges cover the regions of the brain and the spinal cord. The name of those layers are the
dura mater, pia mater and arachnoid. A space remains in between the dura mater and the