The Brain & Nervous System
By Isabella
The Brain and Nervous System is the boss of your body, it sends all
the signals down to every part of your body.
There are five main parts in your brain, creating the nervous system:
The Cerebrum, it takes up 85% of your brain, and there's a reason for
this. The Cerebrum is in charge of controlling your voluntary muscles.
It makes them move when you want them to,
like when you want to pick up something, or throw a ball.
It also stores your ‘memory files’.
The Cerebellum, this part of your brain is below your Cerebrum at the
back of the brain, it controls balance, movement, and coordination.
Your Cerebellum is a lot smaller than your Cerebrum, ⅛
of the cerebrum size, to be exact.
Next we have the Brain stem, Imagine your brain is a flower,
the stem of your flower is the your ‘Brain stem’ as you’ve probably guessed.
The Brain stem connects the brain to your spinal cord,
it is in charge of all the functions your body needs to stay alive, like,
breathing air and circulating blood.
It’s also in charge of your involuntary muscles,
the ones that work automatically,
you don’t even need to think about doing something for your involuntary
muscles to work!
If you put your hand on a hot surface, for instance, your
brain stem will send a message to your involuntary muscles, and your
involuntary muscles will react with immediately pulling your hand of the
hot surface.
The Pituitary Gland, it controls growth,
even though it’s about the size of a pea.
Have you noticed that your clothes you have worn a month ago are too
small for you now?
This is all because of The Pituitary Gland.
One of its other jobs is to control the amount of sugar and water in your body.
It also helps your metabolism.
Finally we have the Hypothalamus, this is like your brains thermostat,
it controls the temperatures of your body, and keeps you stable.
The Hypothalamus knows the temperature your body should be,
and reacts in multiple different ways when your body is drastically over or
under your initial temperature. If your body is too hot,
it will have you starting to sweat, if your too cold,
then the Hypothalamus with make you shiver.
Both shivering and sweating are attempts to get your body back to its
initial temperature.
Your emotions, now reading that your brain and nervous system controls
most of your body, you wouldn’t be surprised knowing it controls your
emotions too, perhaps one of your pets passes away, you should feel sad,
or maybe your happy because you’ve
just gotten the phone you wanted for your birthday?
This is all controlled by your brain, the brain really is the boss of your body!
What are Nerves? Nerves send messages through
the body, they make up most of your brain. If you have
nerve damage, you might not be able to feel surfaces as easy
as other people, or maybe you react a lot slower to things, while
other people will react much faster than you, damaged nerves can
result in learning difficulties and other things. If you have tingling or burning
in your toes, feet, legs or arms, you may be experiencing the start of nerve
damage.
What can you do to keep your brain healthy? I expect your a bit
fed up with reading a lot about what your brain does, well, here's
some things that you can do to keep it healthy!
Eat healthy foods, ones that contain potassium and calcium are important
for the nervous system.
Get a lot of exercise, this works up your brain and keeps
your body healthy.
Wear a helmet or some sort of head
protection when you are out biking, or playing other sports that could
potentially hurt your head.
Don’t take drugs, alcohol, etc, plain and simple.
Work up your brain by doing challenges such as puzzles,
reading, art, or anything that’ll get your noggin thinking!
