AP Psychology - Brain Notes

Frontal lobe: executive control, planning, inhibition, decision-making, working memory, voluntary motor command initiation.

Parietal lobe: somatosensory processing, spatial reasoning, body-position integration, mathematical transformation.

Temporal lobe: auditory processing, language comprehension, memory formation.

Occipital lobe: visual processing, feature detection, color, orientation, motion.

Motor cortex: execution of voluntary movement.

Somatosensory cortex: detection of touch, pressure, pain, temperature, body-map registration.

Prefrontal cortex: reasoning, impulse control, goal management, personality expression.

Broca’s area: speech production, grammatical structuring.

Wernicke’s area: language comprehension, semantic integration.

Cerebellum: coordination, balance, fine motor timing, procedural learning.

Amygdala: threat detection, fear, emotional tagging.

Hippocampus: consolidation of explicit memories, spatial navigation.

Hypothalamus: hunger, thirst, endocrine regulation, temperature, circadian control.

Thalamus: sensory relay, attention gating.

Medulla: autonomic survival functions—breathing, heart rate, swallowing, blood pressure.

Reticular formation: arousal, alertness, sleep–wake transitions.

Basal ganglia: movement modulation, habit formation, reward-linked action patterns.

Corpus callosum: interhemispheric communication.

Limbic system (composite): emotional regulation, motivation, memory interplay.