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The Cerebellum The cerebellum (or ‘Little Brain’) is an area located at the back of the brain,

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The Cerebellum

The cerebellum (or ‘Little Brain’) is an area located at the back of the brain, positioned underneath the occipital and temporal lobes [Figure 1]. The structure’s main purpose is the fine-tuning of movement, and maintaining posture and balance. The cerebellum is commonly thought of as a motor system, because it is mostly involved in outputting to the movement (motor) system. However, the cerebellum’s purpose is not the creation of motor commands, rather the moderation and adaptation of commands to increase their accuracy. It also uses a surprisingly large amount of neurons relative to its size: although it is only approximately 10% of the brain’s total volume, it accounts for over 50% of the total number of neurons in the …show more content…

This means that it has much better balance than other animals such as humans, and gives it the ability to walk along very thin railings or ridges.

Motor learning:
The cerebellum plays a big part in allowing us to learn and retain motor functions (e.g. learning to climb stairs). The cerebellum plays a large role in adapting motor functions, and fine-tuning them to make them more accurate. This is usually done by the simple process of trial and error.

Cognitive functions:
It was previously thought that the cerebellum was only involved in motor functions. However, it is also involved in some cognitive functions, for example language. As Buckner RL said: “This controversial observation challenged the well-entrenched view that the cerebellum solely contributes to the planning and execution of movement.” How and why it performs these functions is not yet fully understood, but the discoveries do show us that the Cerebellum’s functions extend beyond the control of movement in a way we do not yet fully understand.

The Visual cortex

Almost all animals and a fair amount of plants are photosensitive. Photosensitive is the ability to detect and react to light. Many organisms can only recognise simple light, and react to them, however their eyes are not developed enough to recognise colour or images. To be able to form an image, an organism needs far more developed eyes. Almost all vertebrates, and some more

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