Three major parts of the brain stem

Hello and welcome to another episode of Interactive Biology TV, where we’re making biology fun! My name is Leslie Samuel. In this episode, Episode 27, I’m going to talk about the 3 parts of the brain stem and what their functions are. So let’s get right into it.

Here we’re looking at the human brain, and here we’ll see that we have the spinal cord. The spinal cord enters the skull, and where it enters the cranium, the skull, it then becomes brain. And the first part of the brain that we enter is called the brain stem. The 3 parts of the brain stem are: the medulla, which is this section here; and then we have the pons; and we have the midbrain. So the medulla, pons, and the midbrain, those are the 3 parts of the brain stem.

Now, let’s look at the functions of those 3 parts. First we have the midbrain, and that’s involved in processes such as vision, hearing, eye movement, and body movement. Then, we have the medulla, and that is involved in maintaining vital body functions, such as breathing and heart rate. So you’ll notice these are the autonomic processes. In other words, these are the processes that are going to happen whether you think about it or not. These are regulated by the medulla. And last but not least, we have the pons, which is involved in motor control and sensory analysis.