Biopsychology Essay: Anatomical Structures, Brain and Behavior

This biopsychology essay delves into the intricate relationship between the brain and behavior. It begins by describing the anatomical subdivisions of the brain, including the cerebrum, brainstem, and cerebellum, and their respective functions. The essay then explores how different brain regions, such as the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, and limbic system, control various aspects of human behavior, from intellectual activities and spatial associations to emotions and memory. Furthermore, it evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of various methods used to investigate the brain-behavior connection, including techniques like electroencephalography (ECG), computed tomography, and magnetoencephalography, providing research evidence to support the interaction between brain and behavior. The essay concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of understanding the neurological basis of 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

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arachnoid mater. The spinal cord and the brain are covered by cerebrospinal fluid, which is made
from the region of choroid plexus which is situated in the cavities of the ventricles. The main
function of the cerebrospinal fluid is the protection of the central nervous system from any kind
of injury or shock. The internal carotid artery and the vertebral artery are responsible for the
transferring blood. The distal and the nearby structures of brain are connected by the white
matter. The glial cells are the another major part of the brain which provides the regulatory
functions and also supports the functions of the neurons. Oligodebdrocytes, astrocytes and the
microglia are the three main divisions of glial cells. The functions of microglia and the functions
of the immune systems are the same (Barrett et al. 2019). The barrier of the blood and the brain
is generated from the astrocytes which allow the passing of certain substances to move through
the capillary system. Whereas the oligodendrocytes support in forming the myelin sheath which
provides the insulation of the axon and also the rate of the conduction of the nerve impulses
increases.
Brain and behaviour
The brain is comprised of two regions – the right and the left. The left portion of the body
is controlled by the right hemispheres and also the vice versa happens. Speech and language are
controlled by the left hemispheres whereas the right hemispheres control the spatial and the non-
verbal skills of humans. At certain times especially when the right side of the brain suffers from
damage or injury, the patient face problems in the movement, hearing and vision on the left side.
If the left portion is inured then, speech and the movement of the right region of the body is
hampered (Masterton, Hodos and Jerison 2019). All the lobes have specific discrete functions in
terms to the behaviour of humans. The front lobe control the intellectual activities mainly the

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ability to organise, improving the personality of any person and in controlling the emotions and
the behaviours.
The work of the parietal lobe is to control the capacity of writing, reading and gaining a
little understanding of the spatial associations. The occipital lobe control the sight of person and
the temporal lobe control the speech, the memory and the comprehension. The limbic system is
also called as palaeomammalian cortex, which is largely responsible for controlling the
behaviour like olfaction, motivation, long-term memory and also the emotions. The autonomic
nervous systems and the endocrine nervous system and controlled by the limbic systems and is
also connected to the nucleus accumbens, which essentially govern the arousal of sex and the
pleasure from the substance abuse. (Garrett, Hough and Agnew 2015). The projections of
dopaminergic, which are situated in the limbic system also control over the responses. According
to Hutchison (2018) the neurons of the dorsal hippocampus control the spatial memory related
behaviour increase the firing of the neurons and also enhance the functions of the memory
functions.
Tools for determining the link between the behaviour and the brain
The technique of brain imaging can be used for the finding the role of the brain on the
actions of behaviour. The full form of ECG is the electroencephalography and assess the activity
of electricity from the scalp. Another method is computed tomography which uses the x-rays in
order to observe the attacks in the brain and also complete the integral calculation, contrast to the
Event-related optical signal which utilises infrared rays in order to measure particular variations
in the optical characteristics of the cerebral cortex (Boly et al. 2016). Posituon electron
tomography helps in determining the behaviour by examining the emissions released from the
chemicals which are labelled radioactively (Wintermark et al. 2015). In the recent days,

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magnetoencephalography is also very effective in determining the magnetic fields which are
emitted by the electrical activity by using effective equipments like spin exchange relaxation free
or the superconducting quantum interference devices and magnetometers (Iivanainen, Stenroos
and Parkkonen 2017).
Research evidences
Dunkley et al. (2015) has used the non-invasive measures of the neuroimaging, along
with the magnetoebcepahlography to patients for the purpose of measuring the functional
connectivity and it has been observed that those patients who are suffering from light traumatic
brain injury has shown an improved connectivity in the resting stage having very low frequency.
In the deep grey and the temporal regions has showed higher low frequency power. Anderson et
al. (2015) told that there must be a link between the environment and behaviour. For determining
the anticipation in lambs, the behaviour actual varies according to the food and play and they are
found to have increased in walking transitions in behaviour.
At the resting state, a positive relation has been found between the dispositional
mindfulness and the regional homogeneity. It has also been found that a negative correlation also
exists in between the regional homogeneity and the frontal gyrus. According to Marek et al.
(2018) the initiation of the pharmacogenetic initiation of the hippocampal to infralimbic cortex
associate in the recruitment of the parvalbumin expression interneurons which lead to opposing
the expressions of reduced anxiety (Brown and Wisco 2019). According to Redlich et al. (2018)
the human brain demonstrate the improved activity in the amygdala towards the negative side
and an increased activity leading to the positive stimuli of stimulus.

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Conclusion
It can be concluded that the primitive theorists had the views that the pineal gland is
completely an unpaired and the midline structure of the brain, normally act as if the like the point
of contact in between the mind and the body. So, the neuropathy defines the branch of science
which is dealing with the comprehensive and exhaustive study of both the organization and the
structure of the nervous system. This can be understood that the various regions of anatomy of
the chemicals and brain normally called as neurotransmitters which are secreted from them are
mainly responsible for looking after the moods, emotions and also the feelings of the individuals.
Hence it can be proved that the damage or any lesion of any portion of the brain may also make
an change in the behaviour.

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