Give an account of different functional areas of cerebrum.

Answer: The cerebral cortex has three types of functional areas: sensory areas (receive and interpret impulses), motor areas (control voluntary muscles) and association areas (integrate information, memory, learning, reasoning). Their location in the lobes:

1. Frontal lobe: primary motor area in the precentral gyrus controls voluntary movements of skeletal muscles; premotor area coordinates complex movements; Broca’s area (motor speech area) controls the muscles used in speech; the prefrontal area deals with intelligence, reasoning, planning, personality and emotions.
2. Parietal lobe: primary somatosensory area in the postcentral gyrus receives sensations of touch, pain, temperature and pressure from the skin, muscles and joints; it also has the taste (gustatory) area and the somatosensory association area.
3. Temporal lobe: auditory area for hearing, olfactory area for smell, and Wernicke’s area (sensory speech area) for understanding spoken and written language; it also stores memory.
4. Occipital lobe: visual area receives impulses from the eyes and the visual association area interprets what is seen.