Brainstem - Functions

Functions

There are three main functions of the brainstem:

  1. The brainstem plays a role in conduction. That is, all information relayed from the body to the cerebrum and cerebellum and vice versa, must traverse the brain stem. The ascending pathways coming from the body to the brain are the sensory pathways, and include the spinothalamic tract for pain and temperature sensation and the dorsal column, fasciculus gracilis, and cuneatus for touch, proprioception, and pressure sensation (both of the body). (The facial sensations have simiar pathways, and will travel in the spinothalamic tract and the medial lemniscus also). Descending tracts are upper motor neurons destined to synapse on lower motor neurons in the ventral horn and intermediate horn of the spinal cord. In addition, there are upper motor neurons that originate in the brain stem's vestibular, red, tectal, and reticular nuclei, which also descend and synapse in the spinal cord.
  2. The cranial nerves III-XII emerge from the brainstem. The cranial nerves supply the face, head and viscera.
  3. The brainstem has integrative functions (it is involved in cardiovascular system control, respiratory control, pain sensitivity control, alertness, awareness, and consciousness). Thus, brain stem damage is a very serious and often life-threatening problem.

Read more about this topic:  Brainstem

Famous quotes containing the word functions:

    “Mark the babe
    Not long accustomed to this breathing world;
    One that hath barely learned to shape a smile,
    Though yet irrational of soul, to grasp
    With tiny finger—to let fall a tear;
    And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves,
    To stretch his limbs, bemocking, as might seem,
    The outward functions of intelligent man.”
    —William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

    “Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “One of the most highly valued functions of used parents these days is to be the villains of their children’s lives, the people the child blames for any shortcomings or disappointments. But if your identity comes from your parents’ failings, then you remain forever a member of the child generation, stuck and unable to move on to an adulthood in which you identify yourself in terms of what you do, not what has been done to you.”
    —Frank Pittman (20th century)