All Kinds of Minds

By Dr. Mel Levine and Jarvis Clutch

Introduction
Do you ever think about thinking? It may sound like a strange thing to do, but it’s really pretty important. In The Mind That’s Mine, you’ll find out about all the things that go on inside your head when you’re thinking and learning. Once you understand how your mind works, you’ll find out how you can help it work even better.

What’s Inside Your Head?
Your brain of course! Like your heart and lungs and liver, your brain is an organ of your body. It’s actually part of your nervous system, which is like an enormous number of wires that connect different parts of your body to each other.

Your nervous system has two parts:

Your central nervous system includes the nerves that are in your brain, brainstem, and spinal cord.

Your peripheral nervous system includes the nerves that are everywhere else!

Throughout The Mind That’s Mine program, you’ll be looking closely at your central nervous system, because most learning and behavior in school gets controlled there.

Your Central Nervous System

If you look at the picture on the opposite page, you’ll be able to see where these three regions are located. You’ll also see some of the brain’s main parts.

What Your Spinal Cord Does

Your spinal cord is a bundle of nerves inside your spinal column, which goes down the middle of your back. It gets information about your body, and then it sends out signals to make your muscles move the way you want them to. It reacts to things like:

What Your Brainstem Does

Your brainstem is just above your spinal cord. The brainstem works like an extension cord for some of your body’s functions and senses, including:

Did you notice that your sense of smell does not go through your brainstem? It connects directly with parts of your brain. Can you think of a time when you smelled something that triggered an old memory? That’s because smelling and memory are linked to your brain!

What Your Brain Does

Inside the protective armor of your bony skull is your brain. It’s one of the most important organs in your body.

Take a look at all those wrinkles! The wrinkles are actual folds in your brain that help it fit inside your skull.

Your brain is made up of tiny nerve cells, called neurons, which connect with each other in many different ways. Scientists who study the brain think that there may be as many as 75 billion neurons in your body. That means there are more ways for your nerve cells to connect with each other than there are atoms in the whole universe.

Your brain’s "wiring" is so complicated that no two brains are exactly the same. Even identical twins have brains that are wired differently. Let’s take a few minutes to look at your brain and see what’s going on in there.

A Quick Look Inside Your Brain

Your brain is made up of lots of different parts, and each one has a different job to do.

What Your Cerebrum Does

The biggest part of your brain, which is right at the top of your head, is called the cerebrum. The cerebrum is divided into two halves, called cerebral hemispheres. Although they look alike from the outside, your two cerebral hemispheres do very different things.

The main job of your left cerebral hemisphere is to figure out language and information that comes in or goes out in a particular order. Your left cerebral hemisphere also controls movement on the right side of your body.

The main job of your right cerebral hemisphere is to specialize in visual patterns, like pictures and faces, helping you figure out information that comes in all at once, like when you see someone’s face. Your right cerebral hemisphere also controls movement on the left side of your body.

Just to make things even more complicated, each cerebral hemisphere is divided into smaller pieces, called cerebral lobes.

What Your Cerebral Lobes Do

Your frontal lobes are right behind your forehead. In some ways, your frontal lobes are the "orchestra leaders" of your brain. They help you find and use the proper part of the brain for whatever you’re doing. They also help you control your behavior and emotions. The back part of your frontal lobe, called the motor cortex, works closely with other parts of your brain to make sure you move your muscles smoothly and accurately.

Your parietal lobes, which are located behind your frontal lobes, contain your sensory cortex. The sensory cortex receives information from your sensory organs, such as your eyes, ears, skin, and nose. The sensory cortex helps you figure out what different sensations mean and what to do about them.

Your occipital lobes sit just behind the parietal lobes. The occipital lobes receive information that comes in through your eyes. They figure out what you’re seeing so you can tell whether something is on top of, under, or next to something else.

Your temporal lobes are under your parietal lobes. The temporal lobes have a lot to do with information that comes in through your ears, such as music and language. Your temporal lobes are also one of the many places in your brain that help you remember things.

Did you notice that your right cerebral hemisphere controls movement on the left side of your body, and your left cerebral hemisphere controls movement on the right side of your body? Pretty weird, huh?

What Your Cerebellum Does

Your cerebellum is at the bottom of your brain, in the back of your head. The cerebellum is responsible for fine-tuning your muscle movements. It can make you good at doing things with your hands or at playing a sport. A great football player, artist, or guitarist must have a super cerebellum!

What Your Thalamus and Hypothalamus Do

Deep inside your head are two more important pieces of your brain:

Your thalamus is like a great relay station. It receives all the signals from the lower parts of your body, such as your arms and legs, and sends them up to the higher regions of your brain. Every sense—except smell—goes up through your thalamus.

Your hypothalamus helps you control your appetite, your thirst, and the temperature of your body. It also has a lot to do with certain feelings you get, including angry and peaceful feelings.

The Mysterious Mind and Brain

Scientists who specialize in studying how the mind and brain work are called neuroscientists. Neuroscientists study the way brain cells "talk" to each other by sending out—and receiving—chemical messages.

Believe it or not, a neuroscientist can actually watch brains at work! They use brain scans, which are like videos of the inside of the brain when someone is reading and sleeping or speaking.

Neuroscientists have learned a lot in recent years, but much about the brain and the mind still remains a mystery. Would you like to be a neuroscientist? Can you think of another job you could have if you wanted to help people use their brains better?

Different Kinds of Minds

As you can see, your brain is complicated. Besides all the work it does sending signals back and forth to help you control your body, there are also many different parts of your brain responsible for the work of your mind—for thinking and learning.

Although your brain is a part of your body, your mind is not. The word "mind" is used to talk about the thinking parts and jobs of your brain. "Mind work," or "learning," is done in many different areas of your brain.

Different kinds of mind jobs are called functions. Here are some mind functions you might—or might not—be good at…

How many things can you list that your brain helps you do every day? How many of these things does your brain do really well?

No one has a perfect mind. Everyone has some mind functions that they’re good at, and some that they’re not so good at.

If you have trouble with a particular function, that means you have a dysfunction. If you have a dysfunction, don’t give up! There are lots of things you can do to help yourself. You can work around your dysfunction, or you can work on improving it. Do you do some mind functions better than others? Think about your friends and family. Can you figure out what mind functions they do best? It’s important to know about your own mind’s strengths and weaknesses—and to understand that other people’s minds have strengths and weaknesses too.

Do you have a mind function that needs to get stronger? Trying to improve a mind function is like exercising a weak muscle: if you really work at it, it can get stronger and stronger.

In The Mind That’s Mine, you’ll learn about different mind functions and how they help you in school. You’ll have a chance to think about how your mind is different from other children’s minds, and how you can help your mind work better. Not only will that help you do well, but it will also make school a lot more interesting, and much more fun!