Biology Homework: Short Answers on Brain and Body Function

This biology assignment offers concise answers to four key questions concerning the human brain and body systems. The first answer addresses the distinct functions of the left and right brain hemispheres, their communication via the corpus callosum, and the roles of logical versus intuitive thinking. The second answer differentiates between the nervous and endocrine systems, highlighting their messenger types (electrical impulses vs. hormones), transport systems (neuronal vs. blood), and main components. The third answer defines brain plasticity (neuroplasticity) and emphasizes its importance in brain development. Finally, the assignment identifies and describes the four main lobes of the cerebrum – frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal – detailing their respective functions in motor control, sensory interpretation, vision, hearing, and memory. The assignment includes references to support the answers provided.

Running head: SHORT ANSWERS BIOLOGY
SHORT ANSWERS BIOLOGY
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1SHORT ANSWERS BIOLOGY
Answer 1. The control of the right side of body is performed by left hemisphere, while the right
hemisphere is focused on controlling the left side of the human body. The logical thinking along
with critical analysis also falls under the functional category of the left hemisphere, while the
right hemisphere is responsible for the intuitive thinking during problem solving (Rau et al.,
2016).
The communicational bridge between the two hemispheres is known as corpus callosum,
which transfers the information from right to left hemisphere and vise versa.
Answer 2. The nervous system uses electrical impulses as messenger in order to make
communicational approach inside the body, while the endocrine system uses hormones, which
are chemical in nature for the same approach. The nervous system uses neuronal transport
system where as the endocrine system uses blood as a transport system. Brain and spinal cord
can be considered as the main components of the nervous system (nichd.nih.gov, 2020), while
different glands and organs are the principle components of the nervous system
(Training.seer.cancer.gov, 2020).
Answer 3. Plasticity can be described as the ability of human brain to be developed via structural
and functional modification in response to various stimuli. This is also known as neuroplasticity.
The importance of plasticity lies in the fact that this event is directly associated with the
human brain development. In case of the absence of plasticity of the human brain, the
development of the brain will be ceased at the infancy stage of life (Webb et al., 2015).
Answer 4. There are four principal sections of cerebrum, which are the frontal lobe, occipital
lobe, parietal lobe and temporal lobe.

2SHORT ANSWERS BIOLOGY
The frontal lobe is responsible for the motor actions or body movement, speech,
intelligence, problem solving, making judgements, awareness regarding self and various others.
The sense of touch or temperature, interpretation of all the sensory signals along with the signals
received from vision or hearing can be associated with the function of the parietal lobe.
Functional responsibility of the occipital lobe is the interpretation of vision. Hearing and memory
fall under the functional responsibility of temporal lobe (Fox, 2015).

3SHORT ANSWERS BIOLOGY
References:
Fox, S. (2015). Human physiology. McGraw-Hill Education.
http://courses.ucsd.edu/syllabi/SP19/971185.pdf
nichd.nih.gov. (2020). What are the parts of the nervous system?. Retrieved 24 January 2020,
from https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/neuro/conditioninfo/parts
Rau, H. K., Suchy, Y., Butner, J. E., & Williams, P. G. (2016). Latent profiles of executive
functioning in healthy young adults: evidence of individual differences in hemispheric
asymmetry. Psychological research, 80(6), 997-1019.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-015-0706-5
Training.seer.cancer.gov. (2020). Introduction to the Endocrine System | SEER Training.
Retrieved 24 January 2020, from https://training.seer.cancer.gov/anatomy/endocrine/
Webb, A. R., Heller, H. T., Benson, C. B., & Lahav, A. (2015). Mother’s voice and heartbeat
sounds elicit auditory plasticity in the human brain before full gestation. Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, 112(10), 3152-3157.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1414924112