Okay, let’s keep going.  Today I’ll begin discussing the cerebral cortex, also referred to as the neocortex.  It consists of four lobes that are mostly concerned with relationship and reasoning.

The occipital lobe at the back of the head takes pieces of visual information and turns them into whole images. The parietal lobes process information about temperature, pain, touch, where we are in space, sensory understanding, speech and reading. It also receives informationabout the body from the spinal cord.

At the side of the head are the temporal lobes responsible for processing more complex information about smell and sounds.  It also is part of the process that integrates memory.  The fourth lobe is the frontal cortex, housing regions for control of voluntary muscle and motor planning.  Here also is the region for concentration, judgement, organization, creativity, personality, emotion, ETC.

I have discussed the prefrontal area in other posts; it is where our working memory.  When we pay attention to something, the information is in our conscious awareness where we can adjust it, adding new input-information and energy-before it is restored.