Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Science Byte

I decided to change it up today - today's Science Byte is brought to you by Vander, Sherman & Luciano's Human Physiology, the Mechanisms of Body Function, p.262.

I'm sure many of you already know that the left side of your brain controls the movement & sensations on the right side of your body & vice versa for the right side of the brain. Language is a bit different though; it's mainly controlled by the left side of your brain.

Language can be broken up into different parts: hearing, reading, writing and speaking words. A different region of the brain deals with each of these different parts. For example, the cerebellum (at the bottom-back) is involved in speaking and writing.

What's really cool is that men & women process language differently - some parts of the right side in a women's brain are also activated when talking or reading, but not men's brains.

Memories are also handled differently - verbal memories are associated with the left side & nonverbal memories with the right side.

No comments: