The Limbic System and Brainstem

1. The Brain
Limbic System and Brainstem

2. Limbic
System
Thalamus
Hypothalamus
Amygdala
Hippocampus
Basal Ganglia
The Limbic System has five parts; the
thalamus, the hypothalamus, the
amygdala, the hippocampus, and the
basal ganglia. The limbic system is
important for your emotions,
memories, and for letting your body
know what it needs, like hunger and
thirst.

3. Thalamus
The thalamus helps your brain
to understand what the
information coming from your
senses is telling you. Parts of
your body have a specific
sense, like your eyes see, and
your fingers touch. All of this
information is going to your
brain through all of your
senses, and the thalamus
helps it to understand
everything. After the thalamus
makes sense of everything, it
decides where in the brain to
send the information.

4. Hypothalamus
The hypothalamus lets your
body know what it needs, like
being hungry when you need
food, or thirsty when you need
water. It also controls your
blood pressure and body
temperature. The
hypothalamus also controls
your pituitary gland, and your
pituitary gland controls all the
other glands.

5. Amygdala
The amygdala controls our
basic emotions, like fear,
anger, jealousy, and pleasure.
The amygdala also helps you
learn to associate things and
memories with emotions. The
amygdala decides which
memories to store, and where
to store them. Because of your
amygdala, you remember a
time that you were scared
more clearly than you would
any normal day.

6. Hippocampus
The hippocampus helps the
brain to learn and to store new
memories. The hippocampus is
important in connecting
senses, like smell and sound,
to memories. It forms long-
term and short- term memories.
The hippocampus also can
retrieve these memories when
necessary.

7. Basal Ganglia
The basal ganglia helps the
body to plan a movement, and
to do it. This part of the limbic
system helps you to move
voluntarily, or because you
want to. If there is anything
wrong with your basal ganglia,
it usually results in Parkinson’s
Disease. Parkinson’s Disease
is when you have difficulty
carrying out movement, you
are rigid, and you have
tremors, or unwanted
movement.

8. Brainstem
Medulla
Oblongata
Pons
Reticular
Activating
System
Cerebellum
The brainstem has four parts; the
Medulla Oblongata, the Pons, the
Reticular Activating System, and the
Cerebellum. The brainstem has many
different functions like breathing,
swallowing, and vomiting. It is found at
the bottom of the brain and is
connected to our spine.

9. Medulla
Oblongata
Breathing
Heart rate
Digestion
Swallowing
The medulla
oblongata has
many different
jobs in the
brain. It controls
your
breathing, heart
rate, digestion,
and swallowing.
It is one of the
more important
parts of the
brain.

10. Communication
Sleep
BreathingPons
The pons helps with communication between the two
halves of the brain, sleep, and breathing. The pons
connects the medulla oblongata with the rest of the
brain.

11. The
Reticular
Activatin
g System
Sleep
Alertness
Focus
The reticular activating system helps you with sleep and
waking up, keeping you awake, and with focus. The
most important thing that the reticular activating system
does is wake you up, and keep you awake. If there was
something wrong with your reticular activating
system, you would never wake up, or be in a coma.

12. Cerebellum Motor Functions
Balance
Muscles
Coordination
Memory
The cerebellum has
many different jobs in
the brain. It helps
control your motor
functions, your
balance, develop your
muscles, your
coordination, and your
memory. Motor
functions is when you
do things like wiggling
your fingers or your
toes. Coordination is
when all of your body
parts work together.