The Brain Always Wins: Improving your life through better brain management by John Sullivan & Chris Parker

Author:John Sullivan & Chris Parker [Sullivan, John & Parker, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Urbane Publications Limited
Published: 2016-10-04T00:00:00+00:00

The frontal lobe is area number 1. The temporal lobe is number 2, the parietal lobe is 3 and the occipital lobe is 4.

The frontal lobe is the largest of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex, making up nearly 1/3rd of your entire brain. It is positioned in front of the parietal lobe and above and in front of the temporal lobe.

What the diagram doesn’t show is that the frontal lobe contains most of the dopamine-sensitive neurons. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that is considered to be both excitatory and inhibitory. Although most commonly referred to in relation to feelings of reward and pleasure, dopamine is also associated with attention and short-term memory. It enables focus and is responsible for our drive to get things done.

You might think, because of the significant role the frontal lobe plays in our everyday performance, that it develops quickly; enabling us to manage our emotions, movements, communications, decision-making and thinking to our own advantage. You’d be wrong, though. The frontal lobe develops slowly. In boys the number of neurons in the frontal lobe increase until an average age of just over 12. In girls the age is just over 10. It doesn’t stop there, however. The frontal lobe isn’t fully formed and operational until a person is in their mid-late 20’s.

Perhaps you guessed that? Perhaps if you are, or have been, a parent of teenagers you’d already worked that out? Research into frontal lobe development does much to explain why teenagers might make irrational decisions, have trouble controlling their emotions and/or communicating appropriately. The brain’s relay station and the pathways to and from it are not complete during what can often be difficult teenage years and, consequently, the ability to manage some key aspects of cognitive functioning can be limited. So, if you ever experience a teenager demonstrating challenging, counter-productive or even potentially self-damaging behavior, you might:

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