Frontal Lobe

"The brain is wider than the sky." - Emily Dickinson

Location

The frontal lobe is located in the front portion of the brain and is separated from other neighboring lobes by sulci. The frontal and parietal lobes are separated by the central sulcus. The frontal and temporal lobes are separated by the lateral sulcus. The location of the frontal lobe is indicated in the image below.

Frontal Lobe Diagram

By Anatomography - en:Anatomography (setting page of this image), CC BY-SA 2.1 jp, Link

Functions

The frontal lobe has many functions that focus on reasoning, motor skills, higher level cognition and expressive language. More specifically, the frontal lobe is concerned with the following:

  1. personality

  2. emotions

  3. attention

  4. organization

  5. planning

  6. deciding

  7. cognitive tasks

  8. social-emotional behavior

An important part of the frontal lobe is the primary motor cortex which is responsible for out motor skills and voluntary movements. The frontal lobe receives information from other lobes in the brain and processes this information so that it can carry out body movements.

Interesting Facts

A man names Phineas Gage was a responsible, hard-working railway worker in 1848 until an accident caused a rail rod to go through his left eye into and through his frontal lobe. Miraculously, he survived, but because the rod impailed his frontal lobe, there were affects from the incident. One function of the frontal lobe is personality, and this is exactly what was affected by the rail rod's implantation in his brain. After the accident, he was more disrespectful, foulmouthed and had difficulty carrying out plans. This was drastically different to the personality he had before the incident.

Damage to the frontal lobe could lead to:

  1. changes in sexual habits

  2. changes in socialization

  3. changes in attention

  4. increased risk-taking