• Question: how many parts of the brain are there

    Asked by jadoolan to Damien, Rachael, Suzi, Tim on 22 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by leeliebert.
    • Photo: Tim Fosker

      Tim Fosker answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Hi @jadoolan and @leeliebert

      It depends what you mean by ‘parts’. There are loads of different bits of the brain. The cortex is one big part and that has 4 lobes (frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital) and that occurs in the left hemisphere and right hemisphere (so that is 8 parts so far)… We could continue for a long time. Scientists sometimes identify new structures as well, so the number of different parts people thought to have existed 100 years ago would be different to today.

      Sorry I can’t give you an exact number 🙂

    • Photo: Suzi Gage

      Suzi Gage answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Hi @jadoolan and @leelibert
      The brain is normally subdivided in to the cerebrum, the cerebellum, the diencephalon and the brain stem.
      As Tim says, there are 4 main lobes of each cortex (2 of which make up the cerebrum), then there are quite a lot of structures on the inside of the brain – the corpus callosum which connects the two halves of the brain, and hippocampus, the amygdala.

      So as Tim says, it’s hard to give an exact number!
      Sorry about that!

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