What Are The Four Brain Structures That Affect The Human Body

The brain is a vital part of the human body that allows for humans to be able to function and communicate, but it is also a structure that can greatly affect the body and its functions if damaged. The brain is at risk of damage in most situations such as accidents or disease, but one of the greatest events in life that have a huge risk of brain damage are contact sports. Four brain structures that can be affected by a sports related injury to the head are the cerebellum, hippocampus, amygdala, and thalamus. These structures at risk of being damaged because they are in the center of the brain which, when the brain is pushed to one side applies pressure to that side of the brain, crowding these different brain structures together. Additionally, with the risk of swelling (which is a result of damage to the axon), it can push these structures’ axons to the point of damage and can result in life inhibiting damage to the brain and its cognitive functions.
The cerebellum, for example, is involved with body movement such as moving your head, walking or writing. Receiving and sending information to different areas of the brain, more specifically the forebrain, for interpretation is the function of the thalamus (King, 2016). Out of all the four brain structures three of them are part of the limbic system which focus of the mental processes (emotion and memory). The function of the hippocampus is to process information that will be kept as a memory (King, 2016). The ability to be able to determine what aspects that an organism needs to live is the job of the amygdala (King,