ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY DETAILS ABOUT YOUR CEREBRAL CORTEX Brain Flash Card #11/April 12, 2016 WHAT IS YOUR CEREBRAL CORTEX AND WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT? BRAIN SCIENCE FACTS What is the purpose and function of your cerebral cortex? The primary purpose of your cerebral cortex is to control your conscious bodily movements. It does this by generating biochemical currents or signals to control your thoughts and feelings and memories so you will survive in the evolutionary context of human life. Since humans have evolved to become great survivalists on earth, it is important to know how your cerebral cortex has worked to make us the most dominant human species over the last 40,000 to 50,000 years and most destructive of nature over the past 500 years. Now, in the modern global digitizal world of the 21st century, it gives you the adaptability to achieve your goals for personal fulfillment and social reward as a culture carrier interested in both personal and group survival. Your cerebral cortex is the outer cover of your brain's cerebrum. It is a thin dense folded and wrinkled sheet known as "gray matter" consisting of 80-100 billion neuron cell bodies crowded together in a very small area of your head in six thin layers. It is helpful to simplify the most complex three pounds of matter in the universe (your brain) by integrating the idea of your cerebral cortex within the overall concept of the global connectivity of your brain's structures and their functions. You can explore how the idea of your cerebral cortex relates to the new brain idea of your brain's global connectivity by momentarily focusing your attention on the following circular symbol and the #11 red arrow: See #11 = Cerebral Cortex Brain Idea THIS SYMBOL REPRESENTS A SIMPLIFIED HOLISTIC VIEW OF THE GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY NECESSARY FOR HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS This circular symbol was created to convey a powerful visual image of the previously unimaginable coalescence of the many diverse and interactive physical brain structures that form the wonderful new idea of your self-manifesting holistic brain. The symbol of 14 red arrows pointing toward the circle of human consciousness, depicts an entity (a conscious living human brain) made up of many parts with a sum total of meaning that is greater than all of its separate parts. Each of the 15 primary brain ideas in the image, which are emphasized on this website, can converge and merge in your mind to produce the mental force (brainpower) that can empower you to stand up for your self-beliefs. Your cerebral cortex was called gray matter by the early dissectionists and anatomists because that part of the human brain looked like a narrow gray cover of the cerebrum in the dead brains of cadavers. However, inside the cerebral cortex of living human beings the brain tissue looks different since red blood is constantly circulating in living human brains. Your cerebrum, along with its thin outer cerebral cortex, is the newest part of the human brain to have evolved after hundreds of thousands of years of the development of our species Homo sapiens. It provides us with more brainpower than any other animal has, including animals much larger in physical size with larger brains, but proportionally less cerebral cortex tissue. Since your cerebrum is actually split into two parts, a left and a right hemisphere, your cerebral cortex is often referred to in its divided sense as having two cortices. But whatever names are used, the unmistakable fact is that the primary function of human brains is to survive as they have done to be the dominant life form on planet earth. Since human beings have evolved to become the most inventive social animals on earth, it is important to know how your cerebral cortex has made possible humanity's extremely successful survival as social beings. Thus the human brain is the most significant organ that has evolved in nature precisely because of the mass of gray matter contained in both hemispheres, the right and the left cerebral cortices. This means that the life force as mental force is finally (after four and one-half billion years of evolution on earth) able to be aware of itself! NOTE: See also neurons #2, nucleus #5, potentiation #7, connectome #9, plasticity #10, prefrontal cortex #12, and working memory #15. Printable PDF Form DETAILS ABOUT YOUR CEREBRAL CORTEX (for your own editing and memory consolidation) RECOMMENDATION: Print this PDF version and read it. Underline or highlight with colors the most important new brain ideas to save them in your long-term memory. Then read your mashup of these ideas in a few hours and then in a few days to take advantage of the spaced-repetition method of learning. instantly go to: FACT FINDER LIST OF BOOKS ABOUT CEREBRAL CORTEX #11 or instantly return to: CEREBRAL CORTEX: BRAIN FLASH CARD #11 or instantly return to: ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY INDEX produced by Infinite Interactive Ideas™