My Body: Brain

My Body: Brain

My brain is inside my head.
It makes my body work.
It makes me think and feel.
It keeps my heart and lungs working.

Inside our head is a brain. The brain controls how our bodies work. It is protected by the skull, which is thick bone.

This is an x ray of inside a brain. It is a special x ray called MRI. You can see how the brain fits inside the skull.

The brain makes sure our hearts keep beating and our lungs keep working without us having to think about it. Part of the brain makes our muscles work. The biggest part of the brain makes us think, see, hear, feel and taste.

There are five important parts of the brain:
Cerebrum (suh-ree-brum), the biggest and heaviest part. It is the thinking part of the brain.
Cerebellum (sair-uh-bell-um), at the back of the brain below the cerebrum, controls balance, movement and co-ordination.
Brain stem, connecting the brain and the spinal cord, controls all the body functions like breathing and circulating blood.
Pituitary (pit-you-it-airy) gland, is tiny but produces and releases hormones, which help you grow and help change children into adults.
Hypothalmus (high-poe-thal-uh-muss) regulates the body temperature.

We each have a backbone, called a spine. Inside it there is a spinal cord. The spinal cord joins the brain at the top of our neck.

All through our body there are nerves which connect to the spinal cord. This is called the nervous system.Messages from the nerves travel to the spinal cord, which sends them to the brain. Neurons are long, wiry cells that carry electrical messages through the nervous system and the brain.

The messages come from eyes, skin, nose, ears, tongue.

The brain works out what the messages are so we know what we are seeing, touching , hearing and tasting, and if something hurts or feels good.

The brain at birth
At birth a baby's brain contains 100 billion neurons. As the baby experiences things and learns, the brain continues to develop.

You can see a timeline of how the brain develops here
http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/child-brain

If you use any part of this, write the source in your bibliography like this:
Brain (2007). [Online], Available:www.kidcyber.com.au

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