ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY DETAILS about CEREBRAL CORTEX Brain Flash Card #11 WHAT IS YOUR CEREBRAL CORTEX AND WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT? What is the purpose and function of your CEREBRAL CORTEX? The purpose of your cerebral cortex is to generate biochemical signals to control the movement of your body in order to survive in the evolutionary context of human life. Now, in the modern world, it gives you the adaptability to achieve your goals for personal fulfillment and social contribution as well as survival. Since human beings have evolved to become the most inventive social animals on earth, it is important to know how your cerebral cortex has worked to make humans extremely successful survivalists as social beings! Your cerebral cortex is the outer cover of your brain's cerebrum. It is a dense folded thin sheet known as "gray matter" due to the gray color of the 100 billion neuron cell bodies crowded together in a very small area of your head. Your cerebrum, along with its thin outer cerebral cortex, is the newest part of your brain to have evolved after hundreds of thousands of years. It provides you with more brainpower than any other animal has, including animals much larger in physical size. 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 cerebral cortices. But whatever names are used, the unmistakable fact is that the primary function of human brains is to survive. 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 is finally, after four and one-half billion years of evolution, able to be aware of itself! NOTE: See consciousness #1, neurons #2, nucleus #5, potentiation #7, connectome #9, plasticity #10, prefrontal cortex #12, and working memory #15. INSTANTLY GO TO: FACT CHECKER about CEREBRAL CORTEX #11 OR RETURN TO: CEREBRAL CORTEX: Brain Flash Card #11 OR RETURN TO: LIST OF 15 FREE BRAIN FLASH CARDS