Did you know that the adult brain weighs 3 pounds on average? That’s a lot of thinking power!
Naturally, your brain consists of many other parts that help it function as a whole. Why not start learning about these parts so you can gain a better understanding and appreciation for this large organ?
In this article, we’ll give you a brief guide to the prefrontal cortex. That way, you’ll know more about your brain!
What Is the Prefrontal Cortex?
As its name suggests, you’ll find the prefrontal cortex at the frontal lobe, right at the front. Right behind it is the premotor cortex.
You can actually divide the prefrontal cortex into several further sections. The regions are:
- Dorsolateral
- Dorsomedial
- Ventrolateral
- Ventromedial
- Orbitofrontal
All of these regions added together take up over 10% of your entire brain volume. So as you may guess from this, the prefrontal cortex is pretty important!
What Does the Prefrontal Cortex Do?
So you’re now probably wondering about the prefrontal cortex functions. One of its major responsibilities is short-term memory, or working memory.
This is the part responsible for the things you remember for about 1 minute, and it holds up to around 7 items. For example, if someone were to tell you a phone number and you went to go dial it right after, this is using your prefrontal cortex, as you’re using short-term memory.
Other responsibilities the prefrontal cortex has are:
- Decision making
- Social behavior
- Expressing your personality
More About the Prefrontal Cortex
What’s amazing is that you can suffer damage to the prefrontal cortex and still function practically normally. You can retain your intelligence, movement, and sensory perception.
If you’ve ever taken any basic psychology class, then you might know of the cage of Phineas Gage. He was a railroad foreman who had a work accident. A metal rod went through his skull and brain.
Although the metal rod damaged both his left frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex, he still lived a relatively normal life after. The only noticeable difference was a change in his personality and decision-making abilities.
For a while, lobotomies were performed on people with mental disorders. This involved cutting the connection the prefrontal cortex had with other parts of the brain. Obviously, this is quite a violation of patient rights so it’s been discontinued in the majority of places.
Also, out of all prefrontal cortex enzymes, catechol-o-methyltransferase (COMT) is probably the most important one. It helps you maintain the right level of neurotransmitters so your brain can function correctly. If you’re interested in learning more about COMT, Umbrella Scientific has a great page about it.
The Prefrontal Cortex Is an Amazing Thing
As you can see, the prefrontal cortex is an amazing thing in your brain! But it’s just one part of such an intricate organ.
So make sure you do some more readings to learn more about the brain. You’ll definitely have a newfound appreciation for it after you do so!
If you want to keep learning, then make sure you check out our other blog articles now