I have a question about my Psychology 101 class?

Question

The question from our professor is what part of the brain can we go without and why?

When I say what part I mean Hindbrain,Midbrain,etc

Answer 1

medula oblongata

Answer 2

I'm not entirely certain of what the answer should be. From a biological point of view, certain parts of the brain may be damaged/removed without causing fatality, but there isn't really a specific portion that relates to that. You woulod be surprised to find out just how much of your brain you can lose and still survive in a functioning state. Your brain just does what it can to compensate, though it often falls short of full function once damaged too severely.

I get the feeling that it is more of a question to see how you think rather than a question with a true/false answer. Personally, I would say that there is no part of the brain that we could do without. Each part is vital to the psychology of any person and to lose any part would be to lose a part of yourself, as well as the interaction between the lost part and ALL other parts of the brain and body.

Answer 3

I would say the corpus callosum, which is the part which "bridges" both hemispheres of the brain.

People who have had their brain hemispheres severed do have deficits, but both sides of the brain continue to function in a normal manner, they just cannot communicate with one another. My understanding is that the brain no longer processes some information in the way it did before; for example, there are difficulties for people when they try to attach an image of an object, such as an apple, to the name for the object "apple". They still know and understand everything about apples, what humans use them for, what they look like, etc., but they have a hard time coming up with the word to go with the picture.

There are a lot of people in this world living without other parts of their brains, either due to accidents or medical intervention, but the corpus callosum is the only thing I can think of that humans can really go without. (It is sometimes severed surgically for treatment of epilepsy.) Loss of other parts of the brain can cause serious functional deficits, or have serious effects on how the body operates.

Answer 4

Well, technically, we use 100% of our brain. It is a myth that we only use 10%. Still, there really is no part of the brain we can simply "go without".

Your professor is probably going to focus more on the reasoning behind your answer, rather than the answer itself. My guess is that a portion of your classmates will respond with something along the lines that we can go with out the portion of our brains responsible for emotion. That would be incorrect on so many levels, but in assuming I am correct in my guess of where your professor is headed, it's mainly incorrect because fear is a necessary emotion for survival in any species. Following that train of thought, the discussion will turn into a philosophical debate regarding emotion vs. instinct. Then consciousness and self-awareness will inevitably sneak their way into the discussion, and that pretty much gets right to the heart of the basic premise of psychology! Next class: Freud, the subconscious, and the ego....

Answer 5

a million. 20 2. No, yet i do drink caffeine beverages/caffeinated delicate beverages 3. With caffeine beverages, I also have a bent to be jittery, yet i'm greater alert and conscious 4. with out the caffeine, i'm at some 6, with the caffeine i'm at approximately an 8. 5. my GPA in my college classes is approximately 3.0

Answer 6

If youre a man all of it, or all the men I meet seem to have had it done at birth!!