Brain Box

Brain Box 🧠

Three pounds of folded tissue runs everything you are — your thoughts, your balance, your heartbeat. This module maps the brain's three big regions and what each controls, then asks the hard question: why is the brain so difficult to fix?

The command centre 💭

The **brain** controls all your **complex behaviour**. It is made of **billions** of interconnected neurones, organised into distinct **regions**. Three of those regions come up again and again in the exam: the **cerebral cortex**, the **cerebellum** and the **medulla**.

Three regions 🗺️

Each region has its own job: • **Cerebral cortex** — the large, folded outer layer: **consciousness, intelligence, memory and language**. • **Cerebellum** — at the lower back: **coordinating movement and balance**. • **Medulla** — in the brain stem: **unconscious activities** like **heart rate and breathing**.

Label the brain

An interactive activity.

Match the job

The automatic pilot

Which part of the brain controls unconscious activities such as your heart rate and breathing?

• The medulla
• The cerebral cortex
• The cerebellum
• The spinal cord

Staying balanced

You keep your balance and coordinate smooth movements using which part of the brain?

• The cerebellum
• The medulla
• The cerebral cortex
• The retina

A hard organ to study 🔬

*(Higher tier.)* Understanding and treating the brain is genuinely difficult because it is extremely **complex** and **delicate**, and hard to **access** inside the skull. Neuroscientists map it by studying patients with brain **damage**, by **electrically stimulating** parts of it, and by using **MRI scans** to see its structure and activity.

Mapping the brain

Higher tier: pick the THREE ways neuroscientists have worked out what brain regions do.

• Studying patients with brain damage
• Electrically stimulating parts of the brain
• Using MRI scans
• Removing the brain to test it in a dish
• Asking the brain questions directly

Why so risky?

Higher tier: why is treating brain damage or disease so difficult?

• The brain is complex and delicate and hard to access, so treatment risks further damage
• The brain is too small to operate on
• The brain regrows too quickly to treat
• The brain is too simple to study

In the exam 🎓

Brain mapped. Grade-9 habits for the brain: • **Cerebral cortex** = consciousness/intelligence/memory/language; **cerebellum** = movement + balance; **medulla** = heart rate + breathing. • HT — the brain is hard to study and treat because it is **complex, delicate and hard to access**; it is mapped via **damage case studies, electrical stimulation and MRI scans**.