Though the brain represents less than 2 percent of your body

Last updated: 7/8/2022

Though the brain represents less than 2 percent of your body weight, it uses 25 percent of the oxygen you breathe and 70 percent of your glucose supply. The brain has five basic regions: Cerebellum - Coordinates body movement. Brain stem - Responsible for basic life functions such as blood pressure and breathing. Thalamus - A Grand Central relay station for incoming data from all the senses except smell. Hypothalamus - A regulator of hunger, thirst, sleep, sexuality, and emotions. Cerebrum - Our gray matter, home to thought, vision, language memory, emotions. It's divided into hemispheres. If you're right-handed, odds are the right hemisphere is where you make sense of music, images, space, emotions. Your left hemisphere is apt to focus on math, language, speech. In left-handed people, tasks are usually reversed. The brain works via the communication of nerve cells along complicated circuit patterns that register on encephalograms as brain waves, including the relaxed "alpha waves" so beloved by meditators. What conclusion can you draw from the information provided about the brain? A. An injury to the brain stem may result in sensory dysfunction. B. Eating disorders do not involve testing on any regions of the brain. C. All regions of the brain are essential for normal human function. D. The brain uses a higher percentage of oxygen than any other organ. E. The cerebrum is the most essential region of the brain.