Areas of the Brain
An Essay by,
Brian Sopko, Theodore Dlouhy, and Warren Smith
University of Phoenix

The Pre-Frontal Cortex
The prefrontal cortex has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behavior. The activity of this brain region is considered to be the organization of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals. The prefrontal cortex area is responsible for executive function. Executive function relates to capabilities to differentiate between conflicting thoughts, determine good or bad, better and best, same or different, future consequences of any current activities, working toward a goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social control. When analyzing and thinking about attributes of other individuals, the medial prefrontal cortex is activated. However, it is not activated when contemplating about the characteristics of inanimate objects. Several studies have indicated that reduced volume and interconnections of the frontal lobes with other brain regions is observed in patients diagnosed with mental disorders and prescribed potent antipsychotics; those subjected to repeated stressors; suicide victims; criminals; sociopaths; those affected by lead poisoning; and drug addicts. It is believed that at least some of the human abilities to feel guilt or remorse, and to interpret reality, are dependent on a well-functioning prefrontal cortex. It is also widely believed that the size and number of connections in the prefrontal cortex relates directly to sentience, as the prefrontal cortex in humans occupies a far larger percentage of the brain than any other animal. It is also theorized that, as the brain has tripled in size over five million years of human evolution, the prefrontal cortex has increased in size sixfold.
The Frontal Lobe
The frontal lobe is responsible for a large number of activities and functions we as humans are able to do. It is located directly behind the forehead and is most prone to injury because, it is in the front of the skull and is surrounded by rough ridged edges. The frontal lobe is responsible for planning, organizing, problem solving, memory, impulse control, decision making, selective attention, and also is responsible for controlling our behavior and emotions. People that suffer injuries to the frontal lobe usually suffer with language and memory malfunctions, impulse control, and social and sexual behavior. An individual’s personality also comes from someone’s frontal lobe. The ability to use your working memory also comes from your frontal lobe. Some might call it multi-tasking.
The Occipital Lobe
The occipital lobe is the visual processing center of the brain containing most of the anatomical region of the visual cortex. There are many extrastriate regions, and these are specialized for different visual tasks, such as visuospatial