067 The Anatomy and Functions of the Occipital and Temporal Lobes

Leslie is on a roll today! In this next episode, he tackles about the parts and functions of the occipital and temporal lobes: the occipital lobe being the primary visual cortex and the temporal lobe being involved in processing auditory signals. Watch to learn more about these parts of the brain and their functions, as well.

Have fun!

Transcript of Today’s Episode

Hello and welcome to another of episode of Interactive-Biology TV where we’re making Biology fun. My name is Leslie Samuel, and in this episode, Episode 067, I’m going to be talking about the anatomy and functions of the occipital and temporal Lobes. Let’s get right into it.

The occipital lobe, you can see it here, to the posterior end of the brain, and it’s here in pink. You just see a small surface here, but I do want to emphasize that it also extends medially. It’s more prominent as you go medially into the brain. We’re going to see that in the next slide.

This is the primary visual cortex. When you see something, light is coming into the eyes. It’s hitting the rods and the cones in the retina, and there are some signals being sent to the brain. Those signals that are sent to the brain are coming to the visual cortex in the occipital lobe, and then, there’s processing that’s happening there.

If you want to review how that happens in the eyes, you can check out Episode 034 and 035 where we deal with some of those things in terms of how the rods and the cones process the information, and then, how they are sent to the brain. This is the region in the brain that they’re coming so that they can be processed, and so that you can see this screen and you can see all of the things that you see.

Let’s look at a mid-sagittal section, so that we can see the medial aspect of the brain, and you can see here (let’s do it in blue), you can see in this area, we have the occipital lobe. You are just seeing the outside surface and it does extend more medially. You can see that here.

Okay, so let’s move on now to the temporal lobe. The temporal lobe, you can see, is over here. It’s kind of to the side of the brain, and it’s in green. And, the temporal lobe is involved in processing auditory signals.

We’ve spoken about how hearing happens. You can look from Episode 036 through 040. I covered hearing there. Specifically, in Episode 040, I spoke about the hair cells, and about how when you hear something, there are vibrations that are happening. That causes the hair cells to bend, and when they bend, they send signals to the brain. This is the region we’re talking about in the brain.

Now, specifically, there’s a region that’s not shown, the Gyri of Heschl, and that is found in the most superior inner aspect of the temporal lobe. As we go more medial, you will see, we have some gyri, and we call those Gyri of Heschl, and that is where we find the primary auditory receiving area. This is where the signals are coming from the hair cells, so that we can hear stuff.

All right. Let’s go a little further into the temporal lobe. We’re going to look at the three regions. We have the superior temporal gyrus, the middle temporal gyrus, and the inferior temporal gyrus. Those are the three sections. And you can see they’re separated by these two sulci.

When I look at something that’s moving, there’s some processing that needs to happen for me to understand that that object is moving. And there are regions in the middle and inferior Gyri that are involved in perceiving moving objects, and also recognizing faces. So, you’re getting now into some more detailed processing so that you can see someone and recognize who they are by looking at their face. You can understand that objects are moving because of the processing that’s happening in these areas.

That’s pretty much all I want to say about that for now. As usual, you can visit the website at www.Interactive-Biology.com, and there you can find more Biology videos. You can find transcripts of all the videos so you can print them out and read them. You can find all kinds of resources to help make Biology fun.

This is Leslie Samuel. That’s it for now, and I’ll see you in the next one.



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  1. Thanks for the upload! Refreshing my memories for the upcoming semester! I appreciate all the hard work! Keep up the good work! Thanks again

  2. Thanks for the upload! Refreshing my memories for the upcoming semester! I appreciate all the hard work! Keep up the good work! Thanks again

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