The Cerebellum: The Basketball Brain

It was a beautiful sunny Saturday morning and I had invited some friends over to play a little game of basketball. I may not be the best player, but I must tell you that my brain was very active and running. Let me start by telling you about the cerebellum. The cerebellum which is responsible for muscle coordination helped my teammates and I by coordinating the movements of each muscle to make a smooth and perfect basketball shot with maintaining great posture. The medulla which controls the circulation, heartbeat, and breathing is the most important part of the brain. Without the medulla playing it’s role, we would not be able to play basketball, but most importantly, unable to live. The reticular formation played an important role of keeping my teammates and I focused, awake and

It processes sensory information for all senses, except smell, to the appropriate parts of the brain in order to form responses. For example as my teammates would search for a team player to pass the ball to, my visual part of the brain then analyzed and understood that I should become available to then receive the ball. After running around, dribbling the ball, and scoring hoops, our bodies became a bit fatigue and we craved ice cold water. How do you know when you’ll become thirsty or even hungry? The hypothalamus is the reason we know when we crave such thirst and hunger. After drinking a nice glass of ice cold water, I was ready to continue playing. While we continued to play, I came to a point where I felt the sweat run down from my forehead, past my cheeks, when I then realized I had to face my strong and tall opponent. The part of the brain called the amygdala, my fear I chose relate to as the tall and strong opponent I faced and a part of losing the game also created a bit of fear. Although the fear was just temporary in this case, I learned how to play better with aiming, shooting and working in a